


Dear Future Children

by YeolMonster



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: A very gruesome version of 'how I met your mother' - kinda, Angst, M/M, Mpreg, Sooah and Mookyul are twins, more like 'how me and your mother lived through pregnancy', there's happy scenes too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 17:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9913943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YeolMonster/pseuds/YeolMonster
Summary: “Do you think there’s a picture of mom in there?”It's better than that. It's a video.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Helllooooo everybody, and welcome to an angst fest of huge proportions! :D  
> What I mean by that - writing this fic had absolutely destroyed me, I have cried myself to sleep at least 5 times, and I expect to at least envoke some tears in ya'all. I actually didn't want to post this. It's really heartbreaking. And I didn't want to post it any closer to Myungsoo's bday, coz that's just cruel. Overall, I never actually even wrote angst before - at least not full scale, actual, heartbreaking, painful angst. Ever. I think this is my actual first attempt at it.  
> Long story short, Sooah and Mookyul find their dad's black tin box, and inside it a usb drive containing videos of the mom they never knew. The rest you will have to find out by reading. And I promise you it gets ugly at some point lol.
> 
> Huge thank you for my betas; Quinnie and Annie, who took time to go through this and find the mistakes and help me not explode while writing this. Thank you both so much, especially since this is definitely not forte.

  
  
  
  


Dad comes into the room around eight pm, shortly after dinner. 

Sooah glances at him briefly. He looks around the messy room and picks up some toys and shirts; “Why is everything on the floor?” He asks after a moment, unable to hold it in.

“Gravity, dad.” She answers, and goes back to her handheld, scrolling through science projects themes  for something that might catch her attention.

Sooah was just getting started with her new project.

This is important to her, but she’s bad at getting things done on time. All the other boys at “Science Camp” were already flaunting their science projects left and right, but she’ll do hers in an hour tops. She just needs to decide what is it that she wants to do. She’ll probably get the top grade anyway; she’s the only girl there, and all the teachers coddle her. Well - and Mookyul. But he’s not going to get off his butt to actually do something other than paint all day. He only went there because she went. He was sentimental like that and didn’t like being separated from her for too long.

Appa snorts, and opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. “Why didn’t you come to dinner, cupcake?”

“I told you, I’m not hungry.” It’s not true, she’s really hungry. And she wants to just hug him and beg him to stay. He’s leaving to his annual August trip and he’s not taking them with him. Again. She detests being left out, especially when it comes to him. She hates that he has some part of his life she doesn’t know about because she’s ‘too young’.

“Well, there’s still some lasagna left for you.” He sits on the bed, still holding one of her lego kit boxes in his hand.

She nods absently and continues to tap on her handheld, although at this point she’s not really reading anything.

“Cupcake—Hey,” He picks up her chin so he could look at her. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“But I want to go with you!” She exclaims, leaping up to hug him.

He rubs her back for a few long moments; “Maybe next year, baby. This year… it’s still… Not this year, okay?”

“You’ve been saying that for three years now. Every year it’s not ‘ _this year’_.”

He’s a man of routine, her father. He had his hair cut in the morning, and he wore a new black shirt. He always has the midnight flight to Seoul, and he’ll be staying there for three days; the 26th and the 27th and the 28th, and on the 29th, usually at noon, he’ll be home, eyes red and mood sour. Once, when really drunk and after being pestered with questions, Uncle Sunggyu said he’s going to visit their mother. Mookyul pretends he didn’t remember that happening, but Sooah believes it.

“I don’t want to leave with a heavy heart, okay?”

“Why can’t you just tell us? About mom? Why are we too young for it? Is she not dead, is that why you don’t want us to know? Did she just abandoned us? Why—”

“Sooah,” His voice is stern and hard, but he doesn’t get to finish what he wanted to say, because Uncle Woohyun walks into the room without knocking.

He’s chewing onto something, and he doesn’t care that he barged into their conversation at all. “Dude, it’s like 8 pm, you’ll be late to your flight registration.”

Myungsoo nods; “Could you give us a second?”

He pauses on chewing, as if he suddenly noticed that Sooah is directing a glare at him, then nods and backs out of the room.

Myungsoo takes a large inhale, and holds onto both sides of her face; “When I’ll come back, we’ll talk about —it. Okay?”

She nods, though reluctantly. They’re probably not going to talk about it when he’ll come home. He’ll probably avoid the subject like always, and lock himself up with his box in his study room.

He’s a great dad - the best dad in the world, her Appa.

But Sooah detests him for doing this to them. They have a right to know about their mother, but she decided not to pester it further. Last year she cried and begged him not to go, but he went anyway - she was upset because she couldn’t even make up with him after he went because he away for a few days.

They hug and she gets a kiss on her forehead and promises not to drive Uncle Sunggyu and Uncle Woohyun nuts.

And that's it. The door of the house is slammed a few minutes later.

 

~

She’s already in the process of coloring her info page about Mars’ atmosphere when Mookyul barges into the room.

“What?” She says, upset that nobody ever knocks on the door.

They all seem to forget that she’s an 11 years old girl. She needs to have her space. This is exactly why she asked to have her own room. Mookyul never understood it. He still doesn’t. He thinks him and her are still attached at the hip.

Mookyul is her twin, younger by 15 minutes; and until last year, they did everything together. They held hands when they went to school, they liked the same colors and the same foods, and sometimes she could swear she would be able to know what he thinks when he thinks it.

But things changed; they might still look like a set of two perfect porcelain dolls, but they are nothing alike. Mookyul refuses to grow up. He’s really immature for his age, acting like a baby all the time. He can even pull tantrums when Appa doesn’t buy him ice-cream. He likes to paint, and he’d do that all day, if he wasn’t stubbornly following her around everywhere - when he wasn’t following Appa, of course. He’s bad at school, in fact he hates it there and would do nothing but get in trouble with his friends, but despite that he has everybody’s hearts captured. Everybody are Mookyul’s friends and nobody is ever mad at him, and he can do no wrong, as long as he bats his eyelashes and talks about his feelings. He’s dad’s cupcake much more than Sooah.

Everybody’s favorite.

Sooah is the complete opposite of that. She likes science-y stuff and playing basketball, and they call her The Prodigy at school because she excels at everything she does. It used to be just to make Appa proud, but nowadays she just enjoys being on top of things. But she’s much less social and has only a few close friends, and if she does one little thing wrong, everybody immediately judge her.

Sooah always thinks that their mom mixed up their genders accidentally. Mookyul would’ve made a fine girl in her stead. It really upsets her when she thinks about it. She isn’t sure why she’s even so mad at him - or why she’s mad at all.

She knows it's puberty, but she doesn’t fully understand it - Uncle Woohyun would say that whenever she’s moody lately and she looked it up. It basically means she’s going to turn into a girl. Well - a woman. She’s already a girl. She asked around and some of her friends had already gotten their period, they were so proud of it, as if now they’re better than the rest of them, a proof of their femininity, a bonding experience with their mom and a reason to ditch school when they’re having pains. Sooah is dreading it, and hopes it’ll never come to her. She doesn’t have a mom, but a household full of guys.

Just the thought of having to talk with one of them about it made her sick.

Why can’t Mookyul be the one with the disgusting period?

“Dad left.” He starts a conversation.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you eat dinner with us?”

She shrugs.

“Look what I got.”

She doesn’t want to look because it’s something babyish, probably, but she can’t help but glance, and when she does her eyes widen.

“You stole dad’s box?!”

“Ssssh!” He snickers, then listens for a second, but the house is silent. She can’t even hear the TV. “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.”

“How did you get past Uncle Sunggyu?”

“He fall asleep with a wine bottle, like always.” Mookyul rolls his eyes, as if the answer is obvious.

Sooah hums, and sits next to him.

He looks at her, all hopeful, and she could tell that he did it for her. She feels a little bad for trying to shun him out all the time. Even at summer classes, she made him promise that he won’t tell everybody that they’re twins, but the other boys immediately knew; it was probably because Mookyul went crying when Uncle Woohyun tried to cut his hair. They look almost identical, because Sooah refuses to have her hair longer than shoulder length, it’s hard to play basketball with it as it is.

“He’s going to kill us.” She says, nibbling on her lower lip.

He smiles, as if permission was granted, and crawls next to her on her bed; “Well, he’s not going to know. We’re just going to take a peek and put it back.”

She nods.

They both stare at it.

It’s a black tin box. Dad hides it behind some books in his study room. There’s an unspoken rule around the house that they cannot ever see or touch the box. They can’t even talk about it. He always pretends he doesn’t know what they’re talking about when they ask, but they’ve seen it multiple times now. If they pester, he raises his voice or gets angry.

“Do you think there’s a picture of mom in there?” Mookyul finally says.

“Probably.”

“What if she’s scary-looking?”

“Is that all you care about? What if she’s alive?”

“She’s not alive, Uncle Woohyun says she’s dead.”

“Why does Appa goes to visit her every year?”

“How do you know he’s going to visit her? Maybe he goes to visit her grave.”

“What else can he be doing that doesn’t involve us? Why can’t we see her grave?”

Mookyul doesn’t have an answer to that. “You open it then.”

“No, you open it. You’re the one who brought it.”

“I thought you would want to see.” He pouts, and Sooah sighs.

“Fine, let’s just open it together. On the count of three,” They both hold onto the rims of the box, then flip it opened once they get to one.

Sooah thought it’s going to filled to the brim with photos, but it’s much emptier than that.

There’s their baby bracelets, but Appa showed them those long ago.

There’s a single picture. Appa with his friend? Sooah doesn’t recognizes him. In fact, she almost doesn’t recognize her dad. They’re both in white loose clothes, on the beach somewhere. The back of it says; ‘Italy 2014, worst decision ever lol’ - and although it says that, Appa looks crazy happy. He has this drunk smile on his face. He looks young, too.

There is wedding ring - their mom’s probably. Dad still wears his. He also still says he’s married, when somebody asks.

An assortment of post it notes. Mookyul picks them up; “No soy products - you’re allergic!” he reads the first one; “babies milk potion - 180 water -> 3 scoops. Every scoop is 60ml.” that note has a little painting of a potion with a test tube and sparkles around it. The next one says; “Foot rubbing hour for the needy: 20:00 on the spot” He crinkles his nose;

“Once this is over I’m filing for divorce because there’s no milk and I need milk. Silent treatment until 21:00. — is that why they broke up? Because of milk?”

“Are you stupid?” She snatches the notes away from him, but they’re sort of nonsensical, just random post-it notes. There’s so many of them, some stuck together, some no longer sticky. None of them seems important. There are pictures of their ultrasound, an assortment of newspaper articles, and a flash drive.

“Go bring dad’s laptop.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

Mookyul scampers off the bed, and while he’s away - she skims over newspapers, but gets disinterested. These seem like medical newspapers, mostly, talking about some experimental drug uses or something of the sort - the pictures are all cut off, and she wonders if they got into the box by some sort of an accident, or maybe dad put them there so that they’ll protect the rest of the things in the box, kind like how they do with newspapers when they’re doing messy experiments on the table in the living-room.

Mookyul returns just as quietly as he left, holding onto dad’s black laptop. It’s an old sturdy laptop, that had clearly seen better days. It doesn’t even have a see-through screen, like their handhelds. He sets it in the middle of the bed and Sooah plugs the USB drive in.

It’s a large folder of videos.

“Maybe it’s dad’s porn stash.” Mookyul suggests, then starts giggling.

“Maybe you’re just stupid.”

He shoves her, and she shoves him back, but none of them clicks on the first video. They’re all named and have dates. The first one is called ‘Unboxing + day one’ and is dated around a year before they were born.

Sooah takes a large inhale, and clicks on it before Mookyul can back down on this. Because he already seems to have taken this idea back.

The video starts with some shuffling and she immediately lowers the volume, so it won’t awake Uncle Sunggyu. Then there’s their Appa, only much much younger, in the reflection of a mirror, holding an old smartphone to it.

This kind of smartphones have disappeared from the market years ago, and Sooah remembers Uncle Sunggyu had one up until a few years ago, stubbornly refusing to change it to something more modern. He and Uncle Woohyun got into an argument about that, too.

His hair is lighter, but the haircut looks neat and pretty, so much different than the one he has right now. He fixes his sideburns a little.

Mookyul giggles.

“So Sungyeol bought me a new phone because he dropped mine into the water.” He zooms in and out by tapping, then changes a few filters before going back to just plain camera view.

Myungsoo moves away from the mirror, and shows a room full of boxes, and an unmade bed.

Then he moves into the hallway.

“Myungsoo, where is the box with the—” The voice gets louder once he draws further into the apartment, and halts abruptly when the camera meets some guy, sitting on the floor, unpacking dishes.

He has messy hair, and he looks like the camera offended him. “What is this? Are you filming?”

It’s the same guy as in the photo. She glances at it briefly, just to confirm. He has another haircut, and looks a bit fuller in build, but it’s the same person.

“Yup.” Dad answers.

“Why?”

“Can’t I just take videos of you before you turn into a hormonal monster?”

The guy rolls his eyes; “Congratulations, you’re a douchebag. Do you want a shirt that says so?”

“I already have one somewhere, thanks.” Myungsoo laughs.

The guy tries to swat him, but he evades.

It’s weird, seeing Appa so young. He acts like Uncle Woohyun. And he sounds different, more cheery.

“Who is this guy?” Mookyul has his nose crinkled.

“Probably one of Appa’s friends.” Sooah answers.

It must be somebody who helped Appa move or something.

They continue to bicker about something, though affectionately and Mookyul, impatient, clicks the fast forward button. Sungyeol-guy and Appa are painting the living-room in gray color. There’s more shuffling. Myungsoo’s going around showing the newly painted living-room, what he’s saying seems important all of the sudden, as if he’s explaining something and they’re missing it out, so she pulls Mookyul’s hand off the keyboard.

Dad is still filming the guy, though now he’s standing in a loose dirty shirt, with paint spots on it, making sandwiches.

“It’s day one and you already have cold feet, this is just classic Sungyeol.”

Sungyeol is glaring at him; “I do not have cold feet, alright? I’m just not.”

“Yes you are.”

“God, you are so annoying, I am not making you a sandwich.”

“You got all the shots done, you’re taking all the pills, we are monitoring the color of your pee—”

“ **_You_ ** are monitoring the color of my pee—and come on, we knew this is a long-shot. Don’t get all hyped up just to be disappointed later. Just because I ate something bad yesterday doesn’t mean that I’m pregnant.” He’s chopping the tomatoes, very carefully.

The camera focuses on that for a moment, before moving back to his face. Sungyeol tries to swat the camera away again, since it’s too close. “Could you just please stop filming?”

“Well, doctor says to document everything, so we’re going to document everything. Including bedtime activities.”

“We already have that documented from various angles.”

Appa’s laughter is so strange, it sounds like a villain laughing behind the camera; “We _sure_ did. We should’ve send them those; ‘Babies in the Making’ videos.” Appa zooms into Sungyeol’s face when Sungyeol lets on a small lazy smile.

“You’re such an exhibitionist,” Sungyeol says, though his tone doesn’t sound too happy about it. He licks off some leftover sauce off his finger.

Sooah didn’t fully understand the exchange, and she’s positive Mookyul didn’t understand at all, but has a hunch and she hopes she’s wrong. She had this hunch a long time ago, because once when she asked why can’t dad just pick a new lady since there are all those ladies and they all can be their new mommies, and Uncle Woohyun snorted and said that a lady is definitely out of the question.

“Hey, since it is our first day in our new apartment, we should make this day even more special, hmm?” Appa suggests.

“You really think you deserve that— get that thing out of my face, Myungsoo! I’m trying to do something! What’s wrong with you today?!” Sungyeol pushes him, and Myungsoo sniggers but goes back. Sooah didn’t realize how the camera went in slowly closer until it went back because she was focusing on Sungyeol’s features, trying to remember where she saw him before.

Because she must have seen him somewhere.

Maybe in one of the photo albums?

Maybe he came to their birthday party?

“I’m going to get a tour of the house, for future references and when I’m in the bedroom, I’ll count to ten and you’re going to be there too. With my sandwiches.”

Sungyeol flicks him off, to which Mookyul and Appa snort in the exact same time, even though Appa does that on tape. Sooah glances at Mookyul and he glances back at her. “I can’t believe that’s Appa,” He says. “He never teases any of the Uncles like that.”

Sooah hums and goes back to the video, where Appa just finished explaining about the kitchen and is showing the bathroom, which is huge.

“—Lots of space here, I bet we can even fit here Woohyun’s extensive collection of makeup and still have a few racks left.”

There’s some faraway chuckling and the camera shows the floor, but you can hear Myungsoo yelling; “You’re done being angry?”

“Nope!” is the counter, and Myungsoo sighs and straightens his camera and shuffles back to the corridor, and opens a door.

This room is mostly empty, even though there’s a few boxes there. “This is going to be Sungyeol’s study room, for now.” He scans slowly the room, it has blue wallpapers and two window and it’s well lighted. “Since he’s a successful author and all that and he needs a study-room - but…” Myungsoo turns the camera to himself, and he looks quite satisfied when he says; “In case my future children listen to this—”

Mookyul giggles again; “I feel like he knows!” He hides behind Sooah, as if this is funny.

“— this is going to be your room.” He turns the camera back into the room and show the window; “This is where the crib will be.” He points his hand below the window; “ And over here, we’re going to have one of those chairs— a comfy rocking chair, where Sungyeol would sit at when he’s putting you to bed. And here we could have a diaper-exchange stand. It’s going to be white, with cute little stars on it.” He makes a boxy figure with his hand, as if to imagine a portray a nonexistent stand; “I found it in an ikea catalogue. Just need to drag Sungyeol there so we could buy it… and here we will have the closet…” Myungsoo trails off when he shows the wall with the door, and Sungyeol is standing there, with his hands crossed on his chest.

“Please, do continue. Don’t mind me… I’m apparently devoid of any opinion on this matter.” Although he says that, he snorts, and disappears in the hallway. Myungsoo follows him, to the bedroom.

The bedroom is darker, colored in the same gray as the living-room and has only one window.

Sungyeol was just rummaging in one of the boxes; “Remember where I put the kitchen towels and the aprons—”

“C’mere.” Myungsoo reaches out his hand, and you can see it in the camera, again.

Sungyeol looks both hesitant and annoyed; “Why?”

“C’mere…”

Myungsoo comes closer and pulls Sungyeol by the hand, the camera shuffles, showing the floor and the bed, there’s a groan, and some more noises, but when it re-stabilizes, it shows the mirror again, just like the start of the video.

She sucks in a gasp - she’s not sure why she’s so surprised, since it’s almost like that thing she expected the entire video to happen but didn’t until now.

There in the mirror, in that bedroom, is Sungyeol, hugged from behind by her dad. Sungyeol is taller than him by a few good inches, but Myungsoo manages to put his chin on Sungyeol’s shoulder.

“Look how beautiful we look together… imagine how our kid would look.”

“Weren’t you the one who didn’t want children? And started laughing at me when I suggested it?” Sungyeol caresses Myungsoo’s arm that’s wrapped around his waist.

“I don’t remember that.”

“How convenient, you with your selective memory.”

Myungsoo kisses his shoulder, then his neck.

“I feel like you’re just getting your hopes up now, I knew I shouldn’t have taken you to all those tests - these doctors don’t even know what they’re doing, Myungsoo. I’m a test subject to them, and as much as they’re praying this would work—”

“I think this would work — because it’s us, it would work. There’s nothing stronger than our love.”

The smile on Sungyeol’s face is so gentle, and Sooah realizes that he’s ridiculously pretty, prettier than any woman she’d imagined as her mother, while walking down the street. And she can’t look away from him. “What if it turns out as little monster, or… what if it’ll have a tail… and be all deformed. Like we agreed to this, and yes, they’re paying us this big sum that allowed us to buy our own apartment and everything, but what if this turns out wrong, and I’d be carrying something ugly inside of me?”

“How can something related to you be deformed or ugly?” Myungsoo says that with such certainty that it looks like Sungyeol believes him. “Besides, now that you mention monsters, what if we have like… baby werecats? Like in Wolf Children? That would be so cool—”

“I married an anime nerd, so what did I expect? To have an adult conversation, for once?”

“I’m just saying. Then the term; ‘Sungyeol is having kittens’ will be even funnier every time you freak out.”

Sungyeol groans.  The camera is lowered and they can hear; “Did you get all cocky now that we have an apartment together and I can’t run away? Is that it?”

There’s a muffled response, and then the video ends.

“Maybe this was before mom…” Mookyul speaks first, after the silence stretches. Sooah glances at him, and he looks both confused and worried, as if what he just saw has the potential to readjust his reality.

“No, Mookyul.” She straightens her posture. “I think **_that_ ** was our mom.”

“But… it’s a guy.”

“But they keep talking about having children… and look, this was exactly a year before we were born.”

“So… he’s a girl? They said in school only girls can get pregnant.”

Sooah nods her head left and right; “I don’t really understand either.”

They sit there, without saying anything, for a long minute.

Mookyul the first to break the silence, again; “Well… let’s watch another video.”

“Why?” She only feels a big surge of anger after she asks that. It feels like someone unbottled it from the pits of her stomach, with a loud pop.

It’s more like fright, mixed with rage, or uncontrolled, brutal panic coursing through her veins.

How could **_this_ ** be her **mother**?

She had spent so much time thinking about her, and it’s not even a _her_ . It’s a _him_. And dad was so different with him - like with a completely different person!

How could they keep this from her? From the two of them? Something so big!

Mookyul seems to have noticed her expression because he leans away from her, almost as if he’s afraid she’ll hit him.

“Uncle Woohyun will come back soon, and I want to see as much of her—of _him_ , as possible. Of dad being happy with him.”

Sooah wants to answer something seething back, throw things on the wall and point a blaming finger, but nothing comes out. She just sits there, frozen, paralyzed, until Mookyul, with furrowed eyebrows, just presses on the next video.

This one is dated a few days later than the first one and named; ‘Sunggyu’s Birthday Party + test results’.

The video starts with Myungsoo’s face.

He’s in a car.

There’s loud noises of traffic and wind from an opened window.

“Dear Future Children,” He starts, but somebody next to him grunts.

“Don’t say that, god, you’re so embarrassing.”

“Ignore that, your mommy—”

“Myungsoo!” Comes more scolding.

“—is really cranky, because he spent the entire morning with his face down the toilet. But that’s okay, we love him anyway.”

“Could you at least treat these video logs more seriously…?”

Myungsoo turns the camera to Sungyeol. He’s driving. He got his sunglasses on, and it seems like they’re on some highway.  

“Why? You’re ready to admit you’re really pregnant?”

Sungyeol clicks his tongue; “I’m not - but if I am, we won’t be able to send you addressing our future children as documenting to the doctors.”

“Why not?”

“Because. What if they make a movie about us—or something. And you’re all embarrassing and creepy like that. The doctors going to think I married some lunatic, and take away our child, IF we do have one.”

“Well, I’m making these tapes for our children. Documenting the process of our firstborn. It’s important to me. This is supposed to be a bonding experience. If you don’t want to be a part of the process, you can go continue to be cranky and grumpy. Nobody likes cranky and grumpy people, FYI.”

“FYI, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“I can’t wait for you to grow boobs. FYI.”

Sungyeol yelps and hits Myungsoo on the arm. Myungsoo is laughing almost hysterically and the camera shakes.

“What was the FYI in that—even. Asshole. I’m not growing boobs.”

“I can see your nipples through your shirt — they’re so distracting.”

Mookyul groans and hides his eyes. Sooah feels embarrassed too, because she normally wouldn’t notice such thing, but you could see them now that the camera is on Sungyeol again.

Sungyeol frowns, but keeps his hands on the wheel and looks straight ahead.

“Okay, okay, anything but silent treatment— how would you want me to start my logs, then.”

“Normally? Like; today is June First, I’m a complete and utter asswipe, yada yada.”

Appa turns the camera back on himself and clears his throat.

“Dear Future Children, today is June first—”

Sungyeol half laughs-half groans, and Myungsoo seems happy to have gotten that reaction from him. “We’re on our way to Sunggyu’s birthday party - which is ridiculous, because he had his birthday, like what, a month ago?”

“He had a birthday in April, it’s June now.” Sungyeol comments and Myungsoo snorts; “Your Uncle Sunggyu is a fancy ass producer. So everything he does has to be fancy-assed and celebrity status. Like having a birthday party two months later. Even the villa he rented is fancy and is in the mountains and an hour ride from Seoul. And while we’re there, we will  sip wine and eat cheese appetizers, because that’s what fancy people like your Uncle Sunggyu do, and we gotta fit with the crowd.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna see some celebrities. Maybe. Like Nam Woohyun.”

Myungsoo bursts into laughter, as if it’s funny.

“Celebrity,” Mookyul bristles, and Sooah shrugs. They knew Uncle Woohyun used to have a show on TV, but nowadays there are so many shows and so many people, and celebrity status is pretty scarce. What she didn’t know is that Uncle Sunggyu used to be a producer. He lived next door and didn’t work, most of the time she’d be coming home to see him smoking while wearing an apron and making food, even though he’d promise to Appa every time he’s going to quit smoking. Uncle Woohyun would come to sleep at their place every time he’d drink too much and call him an old drunken fart. But most of the time they seemed happy together.

Appa didn’t seem happy - at least, she thought he was happy, but clearly, he’s not the same as he used to be. He really changed. .

The video has already changed to view a large tray of mini skewers of cheese and olives. “Cheese appetizers.” Appa says, then move a little to reveal another tray with little sandwiches, made out of cheese and nuts; “More cheese appetizers.” There’s three more trays, with more cheesy goods; “And some more cheese appetizers. And…” He averts the camera to the end of the table, to reveal an enormous amount of glass bottles of all sizes and colors; “Wine. Call me a fortune teller.”

The camera scans the hall. It’s a really large living-room, and there’s a lot of chatter, many people and music playing.

“Many pretty celebrities.” Myungsoo says out loud, but then zooms in on Sungyeol, who's talking with someone; “Oh, that one is especially pretty.”

Sungyeol laughs and Sooah realizes that he must have had braces or something.

“Look at that smile, I’d totally want _that celebrity_ to have my babies.”

Mookyul groans again, somewhere beside her, but then there’s a shuffle and the camera is turned to the floor; “What are you doing?”

That’s definitely Uncle Sunggyu’s voice. “Are you filming the event—”

“I’m filming Sungyeol, Jeez. Chill.”

“Why do you and your husband insist on embarrassing me all the time, huh? First Sungyeol gobbled down a whole tray of Cheesy puffs—”

Myungsoo snorts; “Why can’t you call them cheetos, for the love of god.”

“—Now you’re standing here with your smartphone, making people nervous —”

“Please, you have a room full of D-rank celebrities that are waiting for their big break, they probably feel flattered I’m even filming.”

“Lower your voice…!” Uncle Sunggyu sounds panicked at this point and Sooah cannot believe that her dad would say something brash and shameless like that. “Go handle your gluttonous husband before I kick you both out of the house.”

Uncle Sunggyu walks away and you can see his fancy shoes clicking on the angle of the floor that is visible.

The video stops and continues with Sungyeol standing in a really big kitchen with a bag of cheetos. He’s accompanied by a younger looking guy, and they’re both laughing.

“It’s Uncle Sungjong!” Mookyul exclaims and they both bend closer to the screen, and bump their heads together.

It is him. Only much much younger, looks like a teenager with blond beautiful hair and large big eyes.

They barely ever see this Uncle, and Sooah sometimes wonders why he bothers coming to their birthday. It’s not like they’re related. He’s uncle Sunggyu’s half-brother. He always has edgy short haircuts and treats both them and Dad really coldly, but he does, however, bring the best, most expensive gifts money can buy. He’s the one who gave her that handheld.

“All I’m saying,” Sungyeol is crunching on another snack; “is that they’re kind of pathetic and literally everybody in this lame party knows. Even me and Myungsoo were less pathetic.”

“No one was more pathetic than you and Myungsoo, rest assured.”

“What, we totally weren’t pathetic.” Myungsoo voices out, while Sungyeol has his mouth filled with cheetos.

“Hyung, please, when someone googles ‘desperate’ your picture comes out.” Sungjong is laughing again and Sungyeol laughs with him and turns around to pour himself something to drink.

“Desperate, yes, but not pathetic.”

Sungjong comes really close to the camera until he’s blurring; “Are you filming this? Why?”

“Just ignore him, Sungjong, he’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, I’m trying to document our life—” But then Sungyeol turns back with a glass of wine and Myungsoo plucks it out of his hand and puts it on the counter.

Sungyeol groans and takes it again, but Myungsoo takes it away from him again; “Nope.” He says.

Sungjong is looking between them with this wary expression for a few moment and then almost as if someone switched a light-bulb, he’s taken aback; “Don’t tell me you went through with it?!” He’s so loud that Sungyeol actually glances behind Sungjong.

“‘Shush, if Sunggyu will hear you, he’ll kill me—well, us.”

“As he should!” Sungjong is angry; “How could you Sungyeol? These bullshit experiments— you don’t know what those drugs and medications can do to you!”

Sungyeol looks a bit taken off guard; “I read all the papers they gave me, very thoroughly. I know the risks.”

“And you just let him go through with it?!” Sungjong turns to Myungsoo.

“Hey— I didn’t, okay? I told him there’s no way I’m agreeing to it, but he went and signed the papers on his own— what was I supposed to do? You know how he gets when he’s stubborn about something, I figured I might as well go with him through it—”

“How can you two be so irresponsible?!”

“Maybe this is a good time to say that we bought an apartment?” Sungyeol finishes by making a surprise gesture with his hands. “And we already moved there— surprise!”

The camera is jumping between Sungjong’s face and Sungyeol’s face, and every time it lands on Sungjong, his face is an even brighter shade of red. It’s almost like he’s about to blow up.

“How could you, after mom and dad died— we said we’re going to make decisions together, the three of us—”

“Sungjong, you knew I really wanted a family—”

“You already have a family, Sungyeol! Me, Sunggyu and you and also Myungsoo.”

“That’s not—” Sungyeol is about to hug him, when he notices the camera; “Myungsoo, could you stop filming for a second,”

“Sorry,”

The video blackens for a moment and then returns to Sungyeol’s stuffing his face with an hamburger. They’re no longer in a party, but what appears to be a restaurant, though Sungyeol is still wearing the same clothes.

He tries to smile but some food falls out of his mouth and Myungsoo laughs loudly, followed by Sungyeol.

“So, we’re here in some shady hamburger place, because Sungyeol said he wanted a greasy hamburger.”

“I said I’m hungry!” Sungyeol opposes with full mouth.

Myungsoo shows his own hamburger; “That’s what Daddy’s having. Mommy’s having a double portion of that because she’s eating for two.”

“Oh shut up.” Sungyeol cheeks are all puffy and he struggles with difficulty, as if there’s a lot in his mouth; “I was starved.”

“After all those cheetos and mini-sandwiches?”

“Quit it. I’m not pregnant, okay? Normal couples take months, sometimes years to conceive, and I’m going to get knocked up two weeks after finishing the procedure?”

“Yes.”

Sungyeol rolls his eyes and takes another mouthful. “I checked online, and if you really got pregnant during the last two weeks, we’re going to have a pisces baby. Like Appa.”

Sungyeol throws fries on Myungsoo. One of them hits the camera while Myungsoo ducks while laughing.

Sungyeol doesn’t reply though, he finishes chewing while looking down on his food.

“Are you having second thoughts?” Myungsoo’s voice sounds gentle, and Sooah almost feels as if he’s back in the room, talking with her before sleep. “Because of Sungjong?”

That sounds more  like her Appa than anything that happened in the videos until now.

Sungyeol nods, and takes a single fry out of the pile; “You didn’t want this. Sungjong didn’t want this. Sunggyu didn’t want this. Woohyun laughed at my face when I told him— I feel like I sort of forced everybody into this, and now they got to accept it. I can’t even imagine how Sunggyu is going to take it, I can’t even imagine telling him that. So now - maybe I don’t want to do it. But I kind of do. Ever since I found about that—about my weird womb thing— I always thought I’m some sort of a freak—”

“Sungyeol,” Myungsoo reaches for his hand, but Sungyeol cuts him off before he can say something;

“No, let me just— I know adopting was always an option, but just thinking about it. Like having something you and me created… that thought kind of excited me. Like a way to fix my flaw. And I was so angry nobody would support it— **_You_ ** wouldn’t support it.”

“You were angry? I literally went out of mind the entire week after you told me you signed the contract. I still can’t believe you’d do something like that, especially after you were so insistent we’ll make decisions together—”

“I said I’m sorry, okay. I know it was stupid and rash. And stupid. Mostly Stupid. God.” Sungyeol puts his hands on his face.

Myungsoo snorts; “—Well, now we’re going to raise a family together, whether I like it or not. So… let’s just put it past us. And we’ll figure something out about Sunggyu. We’ll just tell him you’ve been eating a lot and you’re gaining weight.”

Sungyeol snorts. Myungsoo takes a large inhale, audible to the microphone and squeezes Sungyeol’s hand. Sungyeol squeezes his back.

But his smile sort of fades; “Did you just film this entire thing?”

“No…?”

“Give me that!”

It cuts back to black and starts with Myungsoo’s face, this time with florescent light on him.

He fixes his hair, yet again.

“Dear Future Children! It is now June 2nd, 9am… and Daddy’s in the drugstore because….” He shows two boxes to the camera. They look like toothpaste boxes, only they’re pink. “Tadah! Pregnancy tests!” One of the boxes falls out of his hands, because he’s clumsy, and the video stops again, only to continue with some shuffling, there’s the sheets.

There’s a “wait,” shifting shadows, and finally a picture comes to view.

They’re both lying in bed, Myungsoo has his hand around Sungyeol. He’s grinning, and Sungyeol looks kind of happy too, if not the puff eyes. Sungyeol sniffles.

“Do I have to do this?” He wipes his nose with the back of his head.

“Yes. You have to do whatever I say for the rest of the month, now.”

Sungyeol frowns; “We said one week, not a month.”

“No, it was a month.”

“A week, Myungsoo.”

“Fine— But I will make you do a month's worth in a week.”

“I just remembered we said weekend.”

Myungsoo turns to glare at him, and Sungyeol pretends he doesn’t notice, but then bursts into laughter - Mookyul laughs with him. Myungsoo even hits him with the pillow, though gently.

“Fine, fine! Jeez—” Sungyeol takes a large inhale, and sits straighter, so he and Myungsoo’s shoulders are brushing.

“So…” He finally talks to the camera, fixes his bed-hair a little; “We’re pregnant!”

Myungsoo is nodding his head, as if approving.

“Even though this is… probably had a 0.0001% chance of happening… But it did. So there’s that.”

“Now say what I told you to say.” Myungsoo pulls him by the shoulders. “To the camera.” He points with one of the fingers that’s around Sungyeol’s shoulder.

Sungyeol rolls his eyes.

“Myungsoo was right, and I was wrong.”

“Good. Finally. I have it recorded too.”

“But— I’m pretty sure it’s the fault of Myungsoo’s stubborn spermatozoids that don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“Or, maybe it’s because of the alluring magical vagina Sungyeol has up his ass.”

This time Myungsoo is the one who gets hit with a pillow, but hard, although both of them are laughing.

The feed is once again a mess of sheets and giggles; “Oh my god, we are never showing that to our baby—”

The video ends there.

 

.

 

The next two videos are medical of sorts, they’re even named with numbers.

There’s Jang Dongwoo, Sungyeol’s private nurse during the checkups, and there’s also Doctor Howon, who seems nice though clearly awkward, he’s fairly young, and he’s in charge of Sungyeol’s mental state . All the other doctors are old, and don’t seem very friendly.

They ask Sungyeol a bunch of questions, some very invasive, and clearly, some seem like Sungyeol doesn’t want to talk about. Dongwoo is there during the entire time and Sungyeol seem to get along well. If Myungsoo isn’t in the room, Sungyeol keeps glancing at Dongwoo as if he’ll provide a hint or the correct answer to the question he’s asked. Mookyul fast-forwards some  of the checkups. There’s a whole hour of Sungyeol getting injected with some sort of a liquid through the vein, Myungsoo and Dongwoo fretting around him, talking to him. Dad looks just as uncomfortable, and as helpless as Sungyeol looks.

He reminds Sooah that time when Mookyul broke his leg, and dad came to the hospital from work, and he looked like his life was going to end, even though Sooah and Mookyul were sure he was going to be angry.

There’s a third video like that, too, but Mookyul skips it and presses on the next video.

It’s called; “Back home” along with the date. That’s exactly 7 months before their birthday.

The video starts with Myungsoo waving; “Dear future children,” His voice is soft, and quiet, and not that cheery. It seems to be nighttime and the camera quality is grainy.

“So, um… Sungyeol is back from spending a whole month in the hospital. They did so many checkups on him, and had to perform a small surgery. My camera wasn’t allowed, so…” He makes a face. “He’s really tired and cranky and he’s puking a lot.” Myungsoo rubs his head, and then there’s a soft buzzing sound and Myungsoo lifts up another phone and shows it to the camera; “Apparently this is becoming a huge issue, and the phone’s been ringing nonstop with reporters and whatnot. They had to announce that they started human trials to the public, today. So, that sucks. But yeah, I’m sure it’ll calm down in a day or a few.” He nibbling at his lip; “Sunggyu called Sungyeol twice and also sent him ‘you better pick up your phone’... which is um… scary.” He scratches his head again And ruffles his hair and makes a weird face; “It’s even scarier when I first started dating Sungyeol.” He snorts; “He opened the door. And he was doing this squinting thing and holding onto a gun. I thought it’s a real gun at the time. Then he also asked me if I’ve ever done hard drugs or how many previous partners I had.” He cracks up at himself. “I didn’t even have previous partners.”

Mookyul seems to think this is all a joke, but he keeps laughing at some of the comments, and Sooah feels scandalized by how lightly he’s taking it.

Her heart is beating so fast while the younger version of her dad keeps on talking and discussing about small mundane things, mostly about Sungyeol and what’s happening with him.

She almost zones out for a moment, trying to take in that this is happening - or well, happened already, and his mom really is a guy.

“...so I took a ride while he was sleeping, and Ta-dah!” He shows a carton takeout box; “Sungyeol’s favourite Tonkatsu! Now we’re going to try and change his mood with some food.”

“I love Tonkatsu, too!” Mookyul almost squeals, flailing his hands, as if this revelation is amazing, and Sooah almost hits him.

The camera walks up to the bedroom, where’s there’s a figure wrapped up in blankets and pillows.

Myungsoo preps the camera on one pillows and zooms in.

Sungyeol stirs, and his eyes flutter - but don’t open all the way. He’s quiet for a moment, then finally, after what seems to be eternity, says; “Please tell me you’re not filming me sleeping. Again.”

“What do you mean _again_?” Even her dad’s laughter seems strange and unfamiliar, as if it’s not him laughing.

“I saw the ‘sleeping sungyeol’ subfolder in your ‘sungyeol’ folder. I wanted to be surprised that you have a ‘sungyeol’ folder, but hey, I knew who I married. Creepy McCreeper.”

“You’re Mrs. McCreeper then.”

Sungyeol shifts to the other side; “I’m tired, Myungsoo. You’re not amusing me.”

“I know, I know. But… I have something special for you.”

“Despite what you like to think, your dick isn’t as special— well, it’s a little special— but stop treating it as a gift to mankind.”

Both Mookyul and Sooah make the same horrified noise from the back of their throats. Mookyul hides his eyes, and Sooah feels her cheeks burning.

The camera moves to the other side of the bed, the one that’s facing a stand, and focuses on Sungyeol’s face again. “It’s not that—”

Sungyeol has his eyes closed though. Myungsoo is shuffling and crinkling something, and then he opens the takeout container and waves it in front of Sungyeol’s face.

Sungyeol cracks an eye opened. “This isn’t fair, I’m being grumpy right now.” He sits up and grabs the container out of Myungsoo’s hand.

Myungsoo is laughing, but then it abruptly cuts out and continues with Sungyeol sitting on the couch in the living-room and he has a his elbow propped on the couch and his head in his hand. It’s already daylight. He seems somewhere between annoyed and amused.

“Say it,” Myungsoo prompts from behind the camera.

“I’m not going to say it.”

“You lost the bet so you have to introduce us from now on.”

Sungyeol looks even more annoyed, leans down on the couch; “I don’t like you anymore. I want a divorce.”

“Say it!”

“Okay, fine!” Sungyeol is exasperated, he straighten, then also ruffles his hair.

“Stop stalling.” Myungsoo gets a glare for that comment, too.

He sighs and says; “Dear Future Children, today is—”

Myungsoo makes a squeal-like noise, that sounds a lot like Mookyul, and Sungyeol rolls his eyes. He plops next to Sungyeol and then turns the camera on them; “Let’s say it together!” He urges.

“We’re not saying it together. That’s just too cheesy.”

“We’re saying it together.”

“We’re not, oh my god, I’m going to die out of embarrassment if somebody ever sees this.” Sungyeol is covering his face, and Myungsoo hugs his shoulder and seems super proud of himself.

“Shush, now on the count of three.”

“I hate you so much right now.” Sungyeol gives up.

Myungsoo counts, but then says it alone, and turns to glare at Sungyeol, who thinks it’s super funny.

Myungsoo softens after a while, and then they stare at each other, Sungyeol still sniggering a little.

Myungsoo gives him a quick peck. And Sungyeol returns it, and then they’re kissing and Mookyul is making ‘yuck’ noises.

Sooah doesn’t know if he realizes, but they’re - their parents - they _are_ ridiculously well matched. It’s like a couple from a movie. They’re both beautiful. They look amazing together. Perfect. And they’re clearly crazy compatible. It’s like one of those old hollywood movies about love that Uncle Woohyun loves to watch.

She realizes why dad would never want to consider another woman; look at Sungyeol. How could anybody even compare. When he smiles, it instantly feels like something good is happening. And her dad is head over heels in love with him.

They’re still making out, when there’s a few large booms.

They stare at each other, then back somewhere off camera. “Did you order Pizza?”

“No. Why? Do you want Pizza?”

“I might want some Pizza. Why didn’t you realize I want some Pizza, Myungsoo.”

“Right, because we’re telepathically connected.” Myungsoo gets up and puts the phone on the stand. He must have forgotten it’s still on, or something. It shows the ceiling and the top of the opening door.

Their dad opens the door, without thinking, you can see the bits of his hair moving around, but then there a crush and the hair disappears.  

“You mother fucking—”

“Sunggyu!” Sungyeol screams, and his hair appears in the frame. He runs up to the last place where Myungsoo’s dad appeared; “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“What the fuck do I think I’m doing? Me? What the fuck are you two doing?!”

Sooah almost wants to close her ears. She never heard Uncle Sunggyu yelling or cursing. She never heard him so angry. Not even once. He was grumpy, and bossy, and never satisfied with anything - but never this angry. It’s almost like it’s not even his voice.

“Huh?! Sungyeol?!” There’s a slap of paper. “I had to find out from some newspaper that my male brother is pregnant with— god knows what?! And you!!! You allowed it! From the moment you stepped into my house, I immediately knew you were—”

“It w-wasn’t my—” Myungsoo is stumbling through words, but then the patch of auburn hair moves toward Myungsoo’s hair, but is shielded by the patch of Sungyeol’s hair.

Sooah is frustrated with the fact she can’t see what’s happening. “You don’t get to come into **_my_ ** house and punch **_my_ ** husband, okay, Sunggyu?! I’m not Woohyun, I’m not going to tolerate this shit, I’m your brother - not just your brother, your 25 years old brother that can make decisions on his own - so unless you apologize to him, you are not welcomed here.”

“Ever since mom and dad died— I always did what was best for the three of us and—”

“And what?! Huh? That gives you the right to barge into my life? I know the risks! I read all the small letters. I know what I’m doing.”

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, Sungyeol!”

“This is all you ever tell me and Sungjong, Sunggyu! That we have no clue about the world, that we’re both spoiled brats — and making us feel like we’re some idiots that just stumble through life and need you to herd us in the right direction!”

“Seriously?! You know I have nothing beside the two of you—”

“But that doesn’t give you the right to order us around or control our lives!”

“I knew it— I just knew that this is how it will all turn out! You risking your life over some needless idiotic procedure that doesn’t guarantees shit—Couldn’t you just adopt a kid? Do you even know what chemicals they’re pouring into your body?!”

“I do! Sunggyu I keep telling you, that I know the risks, okay? I choose this. Me. Don’t blame this on Myungsoo or anybody else, I went and signed the papers without him.”

“Okay. So. Now you’re growing that weird abomination in your belly, how do you know they won’t just take it away, whatever it is, and do tests on it? And—”

“Get out!” Sungyeol’s voice breaks when he yells that. It’s so loud that Sooah feels like the speakers are going to explode. “Get out, I don’t want to see you again.”

Sunggyu huffs, but leaves. He slams the door, too.

“Are you okay?” Sungyeol is asking; “Does it hurt?”  

Then there’s some sniffing.

“Don’t touch it, I’ll go bring some ice.”

“I’m fine, Sungyeol.” Myungsoo finally replies. “Are you okay…? I can’t believe you finally stood up to your hyung.”

“Well… it needed to happen sooner or later. He’s not my dad.” There’s a pause.

“Some of the stuff he said… um, I mean… I know I have my head in the clouds and he had some—”

“Are you agreeing with him?!” Sungyeol raises his voice.

“He’s worried about you. And I’m worried about you. And a lot of times I wonder if that’s really worth the risk.”

“I want your baby, Myungsoo.” the tips of Sungyeol’s hair say. “And it never hurts to try. If this thing will go awry at some point - we can always abort it, and sell the apartment and give them back the money. And we can always adopt. But if we have this one chance to have a baby together - wouldn’t you want to just try?”

“I love you.” Is Myungsoo’s answer, but he doesn’t say anything else.  

“I’m not kissing you as long as you have blood on your lips. I think there’s some herb you can put on your so it won’t bloat up from the cut. Wait.” Sungyeol walks up to the phone. And then makes a face; “You left the camera on, idiot.”

“Good, more evidence to sue Sunggyu.” Myungsoo is groaning, through he sounds nasal, and the video ends.

Sooah just sits there and stares at the blank screen, just to digest whatever’s happening.

She turns to Mookyul, and he quickly glances at her and wipes his eyes. “Uncle Sunggyu never even wanted us.” He says. “Nobody wanted us beside mom. That’s why Uncle Sungjong hates us, that’s why—” He trails off and wipes his tears again.

He seems small, and his tears are huge, but he keeps pressing his lips together, so they’ll stop coming out.

“That’s—” Sooah’s throat is also a little dry, so she just hugs him.

His body shakes for long minutes, but he doesn’t wail loudly the usually does when he’s crying for candies or when he’s being bratty.

“It’s not true.” She’s caressing his back. “Uncle Sunggyu - he clearly changed his mind. And Appa. He always tells us that he loves us. So don’t think that. I think Uncle Sunggyu - I think just like in the video, he’s really protective of us and he loves us a lot. And he also loves bossing people around. And Appa - you know, Appa loves us more than anything.”

Mookyul nods his head but doesn’t let go of her, fists clenched into her shirt. They stay like this for long moments. Sooah really feels like she doesn’t want to sleep alone in her own room anymore. She’s feels like it was a big mistake to get her own room, without Mookyul. He’s still a little baby, even if he’s just 15 minutes younger.

The house is so quiet.

“I-I want to-to see more. Of him.” He stutters, still wiping his face when he lets her go.

She nods, but when she turns to the laptop, she can’t move, as if she’s scared to see what’s coming next. There’s another medical video, but Mookyul clicks on the next video, which is titled; “Sungyeol’s birthday”.

Myungsoo seems kinda drunk. The camera is so shaky. Sungyeol seems deliriously happy. They’re both happy. They don’t talk about anything important.

It’s the middle of some park, with a large water of body, and its nighttime, probably really late because there’s nobody else of there beside the two of them, and they’re holding hands and joking and daring each other to do seriously stupid things. They don’t even talk about anything important.

Sooah and Mookyul both laugh at their parents’ strange antiques as they try to hog the camera and tell them weird facts about each other, stuff like;

“Myungsoo has holes in all of his socks. All of them. I buy him new socks, and during the night he makes holes in them.”

“Yeah, well. Sungyeol nape smells like blueberries. And I find that sexy.”

“How is that even an insult? God, you’re such a bad drunk, you’re hilarious.”

“Sungyeol likes to sniff my sweaty shirts.”

“Oh my god - you do that, not me!” Myungsoo is shaking his head with a smile on his face as if he’s falsely accused; “You totally do, Myungsoo, I caught you when you were doing the laundry.”

He keeps on shaking his head, in the same way as if he didn’t hear Sungyeol talking; “nuh-huh.”

“Idiot.”

“We went to a festival and I won a goldfish, and Sungyeol’s cat ate it. I was so upset for days, because it was a token of my love.”

Sungyeol bursts out laughing; “I actually lied about that, Myungsoo. I forgot to feed it and it just died. I got up in the morning and it sorta was just floating on the surface.”

“I can’t believe you blamed your cat! I loved your cat! Jureumi! I held grudge!”

“Myungsoo actually likes watching cat videos to fall asleep.”

“It relaxes me!”

“Oh, and Myungsoo loves Udon. He once ate 5 bowls, I kid you not. Then he puked and had hard diarrhea for days - but that still counts.”

“Well, I’m not the one who overdosed on coffee and got himself in the hospital.”

“A hot nurse would come check up on me every hour, so Myungsoo - who was not even my boyfriend at the time - would just hang out near my hospital room or nest inside until Sunggyu would kick him out—”

“Yes, I was! I totally was! We already kissed twice by then, totally was his boyfriend by then. I had rights on this territory! It was all mine! I conquered it with my lips. I came, I saw, I conquer—” Myungsoo stumbled upon a rock, then, and tumbles down in a loud crush and Sungyeol burst into laughter. Thankfully he was the one holding the phone. He turns the camera to the grunting body on the ground, shaking it as he tries to stop laughing.

“Come on, Napoleon Bonaparte, let’s go conquer the rest of the park.” He helps him up.

 

.

 

The next video is “Sungjong’s birthday”.

It’s clearly a small gathering of friends and relatives. Nothing like Sunggyu’s party. It’s located in an a house, which has a large outdoor patio with grass and trees.

There’s barbeque.

Dongwoo, Sungyeol’s nurse is also there, with a lady friend. Myungsoo is asking him about babies over the food.

There’s loud chatter. The video just sorta strolls around the room, not particularly looking at anything. Sungyeol must be the one taking it.

It moves away from the party, into a hallway. “This is my old room.” He says and shows around. There’s an assortment of posters on the walls. A desk filled with old heroes figurines. His bed has blueish sheets. He waves to himself in the mirror by the closet.

“Babe?” Myungsoo peeks in, and the video immediately stops, as if Sungyeol was scared to be found out filming for them.

When it’s back on, it’s quieter, by much, and there’s a “shh, shhh! Be quiet!” And somebody fumbling with the blinds for a few seconds, before the camera, unfocused, is directed into the now-dark patio. It takes it a while until it finally focused on Sunggyu and Woohyun standing out in the patio. Sunggyu is holding a beer.

They seem to be awkward.

“Uncle Woohyun had blonde hair!” Mookyul exclaims right into Sooah’s ear.

“It looks strange on him!” Sooah agrees.

Then suddenly understands she doesn’t feel angry anymore. The atmosphere in the previous video was so light and good, that all the rage just trickled away somewhere, and she’s not sure how to conjure it back.

They both bend down to look more closely at the shadowy figures in the patio of the video.

There’s muffled voices, but they can’t hear exactly what they’re saying.

Woohyun suddenly takes a few steps back.

“Come on, Come on.” Myungsoo’s chanting.

“Stop it. Just accept that you lost.” Sungyeol says.

“They’re going to hear us…” Uncle Sungjong (probably?) says that last bit.

Woohyun is now raising his voice, and Sunggyu is shaking his bottle at him and they’re arguing.

“Kiss him, already!” Sungjong is whispering.

Sunggyu holds onto Woohyun’s hand roughly, but Woohyun tears it out of his grip and slaps him.

All three people behind the camera are making loads of noise, now, as if something big had just happened. Myungsoo’s laughing, Sungyeol’s ‘awww’ing and Sungjong’s groaning.

“You just can’t trust Hyung. He’s horrible.”

“I think he’s taking the wrong approach. He shouldn’t be cornering Woohyun, as his childhood friend, that’s like the last thing you want to do with him. He’s a constant flight risk.”

Myungsoo turns the camera back to Sungyeol and Sungjong after Woohyun leaves the patio; “You both love your hyung too much. Pay up. 50,000 wons each.”

Sungjong begrudging takes out his wallet, that has a bunny on it, and pays him.

Sungyeol’s drinking juice of some kind when Myungsoo turns the camera back to him. “What? Your money is my money.”

“Nope, pay up and I’ll buy you a nice vibrating toy.”

“TMI!” Sungjong yells. Going back from the window to hop on the counter on the kitchen.

Sooah doesn’t understand why would Sungyeol need a vibrating toy.

Sungyeol pays, while giving Myungsoo a challenging look. And Myungsoo snorts at him.

“Did you make up yet with Hyung?” Sungjong says, dangling his legs against the wood of the cabinet he’s sitting on.

“Nope. I’m not going to say a word to him until he apologizes to Myungsoo.”

“Never, then.” Myungsoo peeps; “Which is fine by me.”

Sungjong sips from his beer again, and Sungyeol is collecting some of the plastic plates on the isle of the kitchen.

“Don’t you think you’re being too harsh on him? You didn’t even prepare him about this, of course he’ll be angry. Rightfully so, considering what you’re going to get through.”

“It was my decision to make.” Sungyeol says stubbornly; “Nobody else’s.”

“How is the thing, then?” Sungjong nods toward Sungyeol.

“Don’t call it a thing.” Myungsoo’s voice sounds a little strange, somewhere between angry and threatening. “It’s a baby.”

“You don’t know that.” Sungjong snorts. “It could be a centipede, for all we know.”

“Sungjong.” Sungyeol says.

“It has a heart beat. And it’s very fast and very small. You could already see it. It’s not just a little grain, but it’s already a thing. We saw it. It’s already there.”

Sungjong doesn’t look happy at all with what Myungsoo said, as if he prefered it was a centipede.

Sunggyu comes in through the patio door. The camera isn’t on him, but there’s like this heavy pause. Then he shuffles past Sungjong and up the stairway.

The video ends.

Sooah glances at the clock, and realizes at this point, Uncle Woohyun can be home any minute.

She quickly opens the next video titled; “Exhibition Day”.

It starts with Sungyeol putting his phone in front of him and then looking up ahead. He’s driving in a car.

“Okay.” He says to the camera. “So. I just finished up my check up. It’s week 15. I had to take a buttload of meds home, though.” He holds up a bag that seems filled to the brim.

“Your daddy doesn’t know yet.” He’s nibbling at his lip, clearly excited. “I didn’t tell him about today’s check-up because _today_ is exhibition day. Myungsoo’s been stressing for two days straight. If I told him, he would’ve left everything and just came with me, because he’s clingy like that. So I figured - I’d just take Sungjong with me.”

He swerves the car, and sighs; “He was a huge bitch the entire way there. But then he met Hoya, and became a placid coy little kitten.” He snorts; “Not only that, he kept talking about the centipede… and then Hoya showed us… that there’s actually two centipedes.” He bites his lower lip. He’s not even looking at the camera, but on the road, but he seems excited and happy at the same time, drumming his fingers on the wheel; “I can’t believe it! Twins! And Sungjong seemed to change his mind, now that he saw you two…” He takes a large shaky inhale. Then probably stops on a red light and glances at the camera.

Sooah wishes he could actually see her - **_them_ ** , the both of them - through the lens. They’re no longer just two heart beats. “So your daddy doesn’t know yet. That there’s going to be two of you. I don’t know how to tell him— I mean, I do know how to tell him, but he’s going to completely flip out. I’m just trying to figure out a way that doesn’t cause a heart attack.”

Mookyul shifts beside her. Sooah glances at him. He seems really excited, as if he’s experiencing Sungyeol’s emotions on himself, rubbing his hands on his jeans, as if he completely forgot that he cried minutes ago.

“Anyway, god.” He takes another inhale; “I just dropped Sungjong off… and I’m going to to give this~” He takes out a rectangular gift box from his pocket. “To your daddy tonight.” He gives a really wide excited grin to the camera and signs off.

The next part is an exhibition. A photography exhibition.

“Oh, yeah, Dad used to be a photographer, remember?”

“Yeah.” Mookyul answers, but his eyes are glued to the screen.

Now, dad was doing a boring 9-to-5 job at some management office. He was doing something that had to do with camera equipment companies, but when Sooah and Mookyul came to visit him at work, it was just a bunch of cubicles - their dad had his own huge office, that looked off to the city. But beside the nice view, it was boring as heck and his secretary, Yein, would run around after them and tell them not to touch anything while dad was off to meetings.

Sungyeol is showing Myungsoo, who's talking with some people. For once, in this videos, he doesn’t look like a teenager, he’s wearing a stylish black jacket, and beneath it a chic turtleneck.

He finally looks like their dad; the clothes are outdated and the haircut is off - but he seems to be about the same.

Sungyeol turns the camera on himself and waggles his eyebrows; “Spanking hot daddy.” He snorts at himself. The video turns to a photo on a white wall. It’s black and white, showing a man sitting with his back to the camera, and in front of him the view of the city from the windows.

“Yeah, so that’s me.” Sungyeol boasts; then moves aside for another picture, of lips, who instead of lipstick have colorful sprinkles of them. “My lips.”

The next set of pictures are of other body parts, and Sungyeol says; “My hand. My profile. My naked butt, thank you very much for putting this for display in your exhibition, Myungsoo you piece of shit. That’s me with Sungjong.” There’s a summery picture of Sungjong and Sungyeol hugging on the deck of a lake of some sort. “That still counts. This is also me. Me. Me.” The next set of pictures aren’t that different from the rest, displaying body parts or something that seems like heartfelt moments - you can’t really tell they’re all Sungyeol.

Dad must really adore him.

“Oh.” Sungyeol stops on a picture of a wall, filled with all sorts of tubes and boxes, and looks industrial; “Finally. Let’s hope if I don’t go further away from this picture, the tubes will somehow end up having an eerie resemblance to my face.”

“Are you doing a ‘Dear Future Children’ Vlog?” Myungsoo catches him by the waist. There’s a smooching sound for a long few seconds, although you can’t see much beside a tiled floor. And then Sungyeol says; “It’s not a vlog. We’re not on youtube. Why do you have to ruin everything?”

“It’s a video log, of a documentation progress, so it’s a vlog.” Their dad just sounds like an annoying know-it-all. Sooah realizes she sometimes sounds like that too, but it's more annoying when somebody else does it.

“So, Mr. Photographer. Do you want to tell me why 70% of your exhibition is me?” The camera focuses on Myungsoo’s face.

He looks young and - well, smug. “It’s not 70% - it’s around 50%.”

“That still doesn’t explain the picture with my butt.”

“How do you know all of that is you - it could be some other dude.”

“With a mole exactly on the same spot as the one on my butt?”

“Maybe this is just a criteria for my models. To have butt moles. And beside-ear moles. And collarbone moles, these are especially mouth-watering. To. Um. Other people to watch.”

“Seems like quite a lot to look for in models.”

“Yes. I’m very picky.”

“Picky, huh?”

“Oh, and I have strict bang-the-photographer policy.”

“We’ll see how strict is your policy later.”

“Mr. Model, are you flirting with me? In my own exhibition?”

Sungyeol feigns a long fake gasp; “I would never.” The camera is lowered, and there’s smooching sounds that make Mookyul make disgusted whale noises.

Sooah hits him, so he’ll shut up.

Then there’s a noisy after-party. It looks like a college party in an old movie, with everybody standing with beer cups or soju bottles in their hands. South Korea has a big wheat deficit since 2025 and beers had become a luxurious item, usually brought from abroad - it's weird to see it so readily available in so many hands. It’s mostly young people, around the same age group as Sungyeol and Myungsoo; probably university friends. Woohyun is dancing on the table - he’s lacking a shirt and waving it over his head like a cowboy in a cartoon.

The camera turns to Myungsoo who looks half stupefied-half amused; “Yeah, so, Woohyun got drunk.” Sungyeol says. “And I’m not allowed to say, but it may or may not be because I heard him talking to Hyung earlier on the phone.”

‘Figures’ Myungsoo replies, but you can’t hear him over the music. Myungsoo kisses the camera lens and Sungyeol calls him an idiot, and then they move to a more secluded area of the party, which is outside.

It’s actually really windy. Sungyeol preps the phone against some sort of a railing and then you can see them both huddling together for warmth.

“So, tell us, Mr. Photographer, tell us how was your first exhibition?”

“Oh, we’re having an interview? I thought we were going to make out.”

“We can do both.” Sungyeol kisses him.

“They’re so sticky!” Mookyul comments, and Sooah shoves him a little, so he’ll shut up, but then the door opens and Uncle Woohyun sighs; “Guys, it's way past your bedtime—”

He stops when he sees dad’s laptop - and the opened box, and the screen - and their parents still chattering animatedly on it.

They both just sit there, frozen, like two deers caught in the headlights.

“Oh my god.” He says that, but doesn’t move from his spot, then he repeats himself maybe twice and immediately closes the lid, and shields it with his body, as if it’s a grenade that’s about to blow off. “Fuck, how much did you wa—” He stops mid-word.

Sooah ears are still ringing from the curse word. They never curse around them - and seeing it happen in movies, or even in the videos is different than hearing her uncle actually using the word right in their face.

When he opens his mouth again, his voice sounds very calm and careful; “You guys know that this box is off limits.” He’s not looking at them, though, but at the laptop, as if he’s still trying to figure out what exactly to do.

When they both don’t reply, he says; “Okay,” and exhales shakingly. Uncle Woohyun scoops all the contents on the bed into his hands, the laptop and the tin box, into his hands and lifts them off the mattress. “Okay,” He repeats, still staring at their faces as he gets up. “You know, you— weren’t supposed to see that—how—how much did you see? Oh god.” Uncle Woohyun wears an unfamiliar expression on his face, and Sooah realizes that it’s fear.

Uncle Woohyun was never scared of anything, he even scolded an Ahjumma once for pushing Mookyul in the marketplace, even though she seemed super scary, but before he can take a step away from the laptop, Mookyul throws himself at the laptop and hangs for his life. “We saw everything!” He screams on top of his lungs.

Sooah feels her heart in her throat. A part of her realizes that she might never see Sungyeol again. That drive might be even more well hidden next time, or maybe even destroyed. And the entire thing will be hushed up, just like always, and everybody will pretend nothing happened, except that’s their **_mother_ ** , in that drive, the only proof they have of him - and she understands the urge to retrieve it.

“No, Mookyul, no! This is just beyond wrong— Your dad… he can’t deal with this right now, okay? He’ll tell you on his own terms, but you both have to understand that—”

“He’ll never be ready!” She screams, and her voice breaks near the end when she lounges at the laptop as well. Uncle Woohyun topples down on the beanbag with the two of them on him.  

“Please let us see him, please!” Mookyul is half-crying now, face red from pulling, but Uncle Woohyun has a steel grip.

Sooah pulls too, and then the tin box flies out, all the things inside of it scatter on the floor.

“Sunggyu!” he yells. “Mookyul, I said no!”

Sooah takes the USB drive out of the plug once Woohyun removes one of his fingers from it.

“I got it,” She tells Mookyul, and he immediately lets go of the laptop.

Uncle Woohyun pretty much supports them through everything they do, in fact, he’s more like their friend, than actually a parent, but Sooah still considers him as the closest thing to a mother they ever had. Uncle Woohyun is always lax with them, gives them candies before dinner, and convinces Myungsoo or Sunggyu to let them do as they please. He’s also the first one to pacify the spirits after the argument, and buys them clothes.

Right now he looks pissed off beyond words.

“What’s going on?”

They all turn to the door.

Uncle Sunggyu has imprints on his cheek from the hard leather he fall asleep on. He’s staring at the tin box of the floor, before narrowing his eyes at them, and then turning to Uncle Woohyun.

“You should’ve been watching them!” Woohyun accuses and springs off the bean bag. “What are we going to do now? How do we explain this to them - or to Myungsoo?”

Uncle Sunggyu bends down slowly and picks up the baby bracelets, and the newspaper articles, and the photograph - he stares at it for a long silent moment before carefully putting it all back into the box. “It was long overdue, either way - they should’ve been told long ago.”

“It’s not something we should _tell_ — Myungsoo is—”

“Myungsoo will cope. He always does. He selfishly decided to keep this away from them, as if one day, Sungyeol will miraculously fall down from the heavens right into his lap, and they could pick up exactly where they left off and be a happy family.”

It only dawns to her then that Sungyeol is real. He existed. He’s not just a video on a usb drive. He was there, and he was actually their mom.

And Sunggyu’s younger sibling.

Nobody explained to them why Sunggyu and Woohyun are their uncles - and Sooah never questioned it, too. They were dad’s friends.

But now everything makes much more sense.    

“That’s still not something we get to decide. They’re not our children.”

“Why didn’t Appa tell us about this?” Mookyul sounds offended, and his voice is still choked up.  

Woohyun and Sunggyu are both staring at them now, and Sooah’s grip on the little flash-drive strengthens, until it the edges dig into the skin of her hand.

“When it comes to my brother,” Sunggyu sits down on the bed with the tin box in his lap; “your Appa completely loses his head.”

Uncle Woohyun snorts softly, but is looking at the ground. As if that explains anything.

Sooah bites the inside of her lip.

“Sungyeol was…” Sunggyu pauses; “Everything to him. And to us. All of us. After mom and dad died, Sungjong was still a kid, but Sungyeol understood everything. And he took in the role of cooking, and doing the laundry, and making sure Sungjong studied - so it was horrible for me and Sungjong. But Myungsoo…” He takes a large inhale. “Sungyeol broke him.”

“This is not a conversation we should be having, Sunggyu. It’s not our place. Myungsoo is their father and when he’ll come back, he’ll explain it to them.”

“Wow, avoiding responsibility like always, aren’t you, Woohyun? He was your childhood friend - too. Or did you forget about that? They already found out. They’re Sungyeol’s kids - not just Myungsoo’s. And a little bit ours - at least, we tried to fill in the void. We got to see them grow up without even a mention of him.”

Uncle Woohyun opens his mouth - then closes it.

If he had an argument, now it’s lost.

Uncle Sunggyu turns back to them and extends his open hand to them. “Give it here.”

“We want to see all the videos.” Sooah immediately bargains. “Until the end.”

Sunggyu sighs.

That means approval.

Sooah raises her chin, and swallows thickly before taking a step toward him.

“Sooah, no.” Mookyul says quietly, hand clutched into her shirt.

Sooah looks back at him; “Uncle will keep his promise, okay?”

Mookyul follows her, hand not leaving her shirt, distrustful. Sooah feels like he doesn’t trust either of them right now, nor Appa. In the pit of her stomach, she too, feels betrayed, but she keeps having the nagging feeling that this will be the last time she’ll see those videos.

Videos when dad was always happy.

Videos of their mom.

 

.

 

They sit in the middle, Sunggyu sits next to Sooah, and Woohyun next to Mookyul, and Mookyul opens the part they didn’t see.

“Wait, don’t open it!” Sungyeol is saying in the video. You can’t see anything beside blurry, dimmed kitchen. Then, finally, it focuses, on Myungsoo.

It’s still the night of the exhibition, though dad isn’t wearing the jacket. The camera then flicks to the Kitchen isle, that has the box on it.

“What do you think it is?” The camera is directed at Myungsoo.

“Camera lens?” Myungsoo guesses, sure of himself.

“Nope.”

He looks confused; “Well, it’s a reward of some kind…”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“So it’s a punishment?”

Sungyeol doesn’t reply. Myungsoo furrows his eyebrows, but then seems to have a sudden epiphany; “A sexy punishment?”

“Oh my god.” Uncle Woohyun says, half snorting, just as Sungyeol snorts in the loudspeakers, too.

“No. Definitely not.”

“Can it become a sexy punishment?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“You’re no fun,” Sungyeol sighs; “Open it.”

Myungsoo looks excited, then removes the lid.

There’s two pacifiers inside.

For a moment Sooah thinks that somebody paused the video, but Myungsoo just stares at them. Then he stares at Sungyeol with a puzzled expression, for 2 whole seconds, wearing a weird expression on his face.

“Well, what is it?” Sungyeol prompts, as if the camera needs annotation.

“It’s… um… pacifiers. But I thought you said we’re going to buy baby things only in the third trimester.”

“It’s symbolic, Myungsoo.”

“What’s symbolic in it?”

“The number of the pacifiers in the box, maybe?”

Myungsoo looks at the box again, then back at Sungyeol. “Wait.”

His expression changes from confused, to shocked, to happy, and then back to shock; “Are you saying… there’s going to be… two babies?”

The camera shakes, because Sungyeol probably nodded. “Twins. Me and Sungjong went to check up today and—” Myungsoo leaps at him and the camera falls out of his hand and Sungyeol bursts into laughter. There’s the sound of Myungsoo smooching him for a million times.

“Sungyeol always had the most ridiculously thoughtful gifts.” Uncle Woohyun snorts. “He loved surprising people, but hated being surprised. Remember? When we decided to have a surprise party for his 18th birthday?”

“He locked himself in his room and didn’t want to come out. Even though so many people came.” Uncle Sunggyu agrees.

Mookyul presses on the next video.

It starts with Myungsoo counting down from 3 and then they both say; “Dear Future Children!”  

Sunggyu stiffens up beside her. It’s probably because you can finally see Sungyeol, and he’s not the one who's holding the camera anymore. He’s wearing a beanie and a loose red sweater. The camera is now set up on some sort of a stick, further away from them.

“So we just found out you’re going to be a boy and girl.” Sungyeol says; “And Myungsoo dragged me to see baby furnitures.”

“IKEA!” Myungsoo exclaims like it’s the most awesome thing ever.

“Ikea!” Sungyeol mimics, though jokingly.

“This is what we’re getting you, so far.” Myungsoo swerves the camera to look at a brilliant white chest of drawers, and each handle is colored in blue and pink

“This is the only thing we agreed on, you mean?” Sungyeol says, examining a crib behind Myungsoo.

“It’s because your mommy is a judgmental monster.”

“It’s because your father wants everything to be pink and frilly.”

“We’re having a girl too, so it has to be pink and frilly!”

“But we’re getting a boy, too!”

Sooah purses her lips together; because Mookyul likes pink more than her. And every evening he sits down next to the TV to watch Disney’s series of Ariel the Little Mermaid, like the little baby he is, and god forbids somebody interrupts him or changes the channel.

“We need to decide on a common gender-neutral theme.”

“Black.”

“Beside black.”

“Light black.”

Sungyeol glares at him.

“Toned black?” Myungsoo tries.

“You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”

“How about obsidian? Onyx?”

“How about you delete yourself?” Sungyeol doesn’t sound that amused anymore.

The video stops, and then there’s an unfocused video on Sungyeol, when it finally focus, Sooah realizes that it’s shot from a door creak.

Sungyeol is in front of the mirror with his shirt lifted up as he examines his belly in the mirror.

There’s a significant bulge. He caresses his belly a few times.

The video stop and continues on Myungsoo in dim lightening. He’s in the bedroom now, and it’s nighttime and he looks really amused.

“So,” He whispers, really close to the camera. “Dongwoo invited us all to his birthday Party… and… Sungyeol couldn’t fit into his favourite pants. He started crying. And throwing stuff at me. And when I tried to reason with him, he told me, and I quote; ‘your parents are dead, that’s why’ as his argument, and then he started crying again and said ‘my parents are dead too.’”

He sniggers; “So we’re having some pregnancy symptoms, which is nice. I never saw him that moody. That’s just insane. And yesterday he ate two bags of dried squid. And half a jar of peanut butter. For dinner. Oh, and then we went to sleep, and I heard him clinkling and chewing something, and I found chocolate wrappings under the pillow in the morning.”

Sungyeol calls out to him from distance, sounding pissed, and the video stops.

Sunggyu sighs.

It starts off again with Sungyeol sitting wrapped in a blanket on the couch, with a large bucket of ice-cream in his lap, watching a movie on TV. He’s half-sitting, half-lying in a weird crooked position.

When he finally notices the camera, he glares and says; “Fuck you, okay?”

“I’m sorry, this is for future generations.” Myungsoo immediately reasons.

“You know where you can stuff your future generations, Myungsoo?”

“Well, right now they’re stuffed up your ass, somewhere.”

Sungyeol’s lips are thinned out, as if he’s trying really hard not to smile.

“You totally wanted to laugh.”

“No, you’re not as funny as you’d like to think.”

Myungsoo moves closer; “You _like_ me.”

“I don’t like you.”

“You totally do. You _like_ me.” this says the word ‘like’ using a baby voice.

“No.” Sungyeol turns back to the TV.

“You _wuv_ me.” Myungsoo sticks the camera really close to Sungyeol’s face.

Sungyeol growls lowly, and it sounds like something a wolf would do; “Get the camera out of my face, Myungsoo.”

“You’re so sexy when you’re angry, though.”

Sungyeol isn’t angry anymore, but he stubbornly keeps the pout. After a moment of silent he says; “You still find me sexy?”

“Of course.”

“Of course?” He repeats.

“Is this still about your belly getting bigger? Sungyeol, you’re carrying my babies. And you look amazing. Even though I expected some boobies, but I’m cool if there’s no boobies.” Sungyeol looks exasperated. “But still though, nothing in you changed, and you still smell like yourself and I still love you the same.”

Sungyeol narrows his eyes at him, then after a moment says; “I don’t know why but you just earned yourself a blowjob. Close the camera.”

“This is so inappropriate for children.” Uncle Woohyun comments, and Sooah glances at him to see that his expression changed.

The next video is just a number again, but Mookyul still clicks it.

Most of it is questions again. Sungyeol seems alert and smiling. Lee Howon, the doctor, is checking his vitals and asking questions.

Then he has another set of procedures with other doctors.

Then they’re in a hospital room, Myungsoo is sitting on the armchair, and Sungyeol is getting some IV procedure again. Dongwoo is lying beside Sungyeol, with Sungyeol’s head prepped on Dongwoo’s arm.

Dongwoo and Sungyeol are both chatting idly. Sooah realizes that dad fall asleep on the chair he’s sitting on at some point. “That’s Jang Dongwoo.” Sunggyu introduces all of the sudden. “Sungyeol and him got friendly so fast - honestly, we were just happy Sungyeol wasn’t alone… during… all of that. That he had someone there, someone who he could rely on.”

Woohyun says; “He’d always come out and keep us in the loop. And send pictures from the room if none of us were able to come in. He’s good people.”

“What happened to him…?” Mookyul asks.

Woohyun glances at Sunggyu, then shrugs. “Nothing, I guess… After what happened to Sungyeol - I feel like he felt like he failed us? Or like he failed Myungsoo? He would always look so guilty whenever he’d come over. In the end he stopped coming. I heard he got married recently from Sungjong.”

Sunggyu doesn’t reply anything really, his eyes don’t leave the screen of dad’s laptop, watching intently.

Sooah wonders how long has it been since he actually saw Sungyeol. There’s no pictures around the house of him, and they’re not allowed to speak of him, and Sunggyu is afterall, his brother.

Mookyul gets bored with the medical video, though; it’s always in the same room that has blue tiles and sheer blue curtain on the window, and always from the same angle. He clicks next.

Sunggyu shifts, as if he wanted to continue watching, and makes this clicking sound with his tongue, but doesn’t say anything when Mookyul pressed on a video titled; ‘Sungyeol’s phone; fifth month’.

Sungyeol’s camera quality is a little bit more grainy than Myungsoo’s, and it’s also a little bit on the colder hue, while Myungsoo’s is more on the yellowish hue, so she immediately knows it’s his phone and not Myungsoo’s. Sungyeol’s showing a bunch of people in the entrance of a building from a high place of some kind. Some are sitting, others are standing.

That’s cut abruptly to Sungyeol prepping the camera on something. He’s sitting next to the kitchen isle. He makes faces at the camera. Then sighs and stretches his arms.

The shirt he’s wearing is grey and very big on him, sliding off one part of his shoulder.

“He’s so pretty,” Mookyul exclaims, and Woohyun snorts and ruffles his hair.

“They stuffed him estrogen until he stopped looking like himself.”  Uncle Sunggyu says and his voice is bitter and mean.

“Sunggyu,” Woohyun warns; “He looks exactly like himself. At least, how I remember him.”

Sunggyu’s doesn’t answer because Sungyeol starts talking.

“Wanted to cook dinner for me and Myungsoo - but can’t get out because of the paparazzi. I guess I’m a celebrity now, because of you guys.” He sighs again. “I mean, I get why they have to release our information to the press, but I kinda wish they didn’t? I feel like it’s exploiting my situation. Hoya said I shouldn’t be bothered about things like that, and ignore them and go about my daily tasks like always and keep being as mobile as possible, but at the same time, I don’t want to go down and get my pictures taken, you know? Anyway, Myungsoo said once he’s finished with work, he’ll buy some chinese. Oh!” He seems to remember something, then walks away from the camera for a moment, then comes back with a series of black and white pictures. “That’s you guys!” He shows them to the camera, but it’s kind of blurry and unfocused. Sooah can tell bits of feet, and maybe a head, but nothing else really. “You both have your own sack, and you’re both very healthy, although—” He glances at the picture himself. “I feel like you’re really uncomfortable in there. I don’t think there’s enough space… So bear with it” He rubs his belly affectionately, and Sooah can see that’s why he’s wearing such a big shirt. The belly takes up most of the space. He sits back down with a huff. He’s fiddling with the ultrasound paper for a moment, then says; “I don’t know how to raise a girl. It’s only been guys forever. And I mean - I raised Sungjong, so I guess he sorta counts as both? He likes fashion and stuff, so… Okay, I know that doesn’t count.” He raises his hands up and Mookyul sniggers; “He’s talking about you, Sooah.”

“Well, maybe Mijoo and Jiae, count then? I’ll have them over a lot. But they’re totally butch both of them, we called Jiae an Elephant since forever— Anyway, my point is.” He rubs his face. “I have no idea what I’m doing! I want kids, but I’m having weird panics attacks whenever I think about these things. Like how am I going to talk to you about period stuff and all that—”

Sooah cheeks burn, and wants to press forward until he’ll stop talking about it. It’s such an embarrassment, especially with both of her Uncles and Mookyul there.

“All Myungsoo ever talks about is his baby girl, though.” He snorts.

“What about me?” Mookyul asks, almost as if he’s talking to straight to Sungyeol, thinking he can hear him.

And as if on cue, Sungyeol ducks closer to the camera; “Don’t tell this to Myungsoo but I totally have a name for the boy.” He looks smug; “We’re going to call you Mookyul. Cute, right?”

Mookyul looks so happy, as if he’s actually having a conversation with him.

“I didn’t get Myungsoo’s _okay_ yet, but he wants ugly names like Dongsoo.” Sungyeol makes that last name sound like an insult. “Ain't no child of mine gonna be named Dongsoo. Over my dead body. I told him we can compromise on Dongwoo, because Dongwoo is a little sunshine and he’ll be really honoured if we call our kids that way  - but he wants Dongsoo specifically. Well, that’s your stubborn-ass daddy.” He smiles to the camera, and it looks so genuine and bright.

“I can’t wait to meet you. The both of you.”

Somebody knocks on the door, and Sungyeol logs off.

The next video is of him and Woohyun. Uncle Woohyun looks very young, and his skin looks glowing. His hair is purple now, styled very carefully, and he’s wearing an expensive looking coat with a fake fur hood.

Woohyun hides his face, laughing. And Sunggyu snorts; “Oh right, you were shooting that idiotic program back then.”

“Screw you, we still live on the money of the program.”

“When your Uncle used to be a Beauty Show MC—”

Sooah and Mookyul both groan at the same time, because this is Uncle Sunggyu’s favourite conversation topic. “He had to follow literally every single trend out there.” Sunggyu boasts, ignoring them. “Especially the ‘no-commitment’ trend.”

“Shut up.” Woohyun looks amused himself though. “That wasn’t a trend, that was you sucking the happiness out of me like the dementor you are.”

“... and now we finally found a restaurant where my pregnant male bestie can dine at without puking, that serves non-gluten foods, because he’s not allowed, and has a variety of shrimp dishes, which he’s carving AND we lost the paparazzis - both mine and Sungyeol’s, because apparently he has paparazzis now as well.” Woohyun is summing up.

Sungyeol is nodding his head, enthusiastically. “Yes,” he encourages; “And we’re also not going to talk about Sunggyu, this is a Sunggyu-free zone.”

Woohyun clicks his tongue and looks exasperated; “This should go without saying, by mentioning that this is a Sunggyu-free zone, you mentioned Sunggyu. Therefore broke the unsaid rule of not-mentioning-Sunggyu.”

Sungyeol is still nodding his head; “Just for the record, you just mentioned Sunggyu 3 times.”

Sunggyu snorts and shakes his head besides Sooah, glancing at Uncle Woohyun.

“Shut up, ok?” video-Woohyun looks exasperated. Then rubs his face in frustration. “Let’s just do the introduction thing and cut this whole conversation. Last thing I need is your kids to know that I’m the messed-up Uncle. Sungjong should be the messed-up Uncle. He wants to be a mortician.”

Uncle Sunggyu laughs at that, and Uncle Woohyun actually hits him over their heads out of spite.

“How is that more messed-up than hooking up with your best friend’s 6-years-older brother? Besides, Sungjong only said he wants to be a mortician because he’s in that phase where ‘he’s done with the living’. Whatever that means. And I’m pretty sure he’s dating a vampire. So they have this theme going on. Even Myungsoo said the dude was ‘too dark’ for him.”

Uncle Sunggyu is the only one enjoying this exchange; “I forgot how witty he was.”  

“Please, Myungsoo said he’s too dark for him? Myungsoo watches reruns of ‘sixteen candles’. And he married _you_. You guys redefine the term ‘vanilla’.”

“What? We’re totally dark and stuff! Especially Myungsoo. Dark and brooding people can watch ‘sixteen candles’ too.” Sungyeol is half laughing.

“Yes, Myungsoo is the holy epitome of dark and brooding. Especially when he sends funny cat clips on the shared chatroom.”

“Dude, I totally married him for the brooding part, okay? He’s the embodiment of ice-prince kingka jerk that has a soft heart and is just misunderstood. I live the dream, okay? Just because he turned out to be a huge nerd underneath all the emo and mysteriousness—”

“Bro, stop - What mysteriousness? First piece of information I heard on my first day in college was that Kim Myungsoo’s parents were dead and that he had a huge d—”

“Yeah, well, I only heard it on my second week of college, so he was mysterious until then. Besides, his parents were dead - he was like Harry Potter! How hot is that.”

“Your parents were dead too by then.”

“Shut up. He was hot. And everybody wanted him.”

“He was wearing fedoras and not combing his hair for months - he was totally hot. I totally get it.”

“I’m just friends with you because you’re sleeping with my brother.” Sungyeol sulks.

Movie-Woohyun bristles; “You know what, you’re pregnant so I’ll ignore that, and remember our childhood.”

Uncle Woohyun, sitting beside them - snort; “Always praising Myungsoo and acting like he was such a catch. He thought your dad was the best thing since pie and refused to believe otherwise.”

“Dad is the best thing since pie. Well, they’re both the best.” Mookyul grumbles and Uncle Woohyun rubs his nape affectionately.

After they’re done being hostile, Sungyeol introduces Woohyun with “Dear Future Children, I hereby present before you, your Uncle and future babysitter Nam Woohyun—”

“Hold on, nobody ever said anything about babysitting! I ain’t changing diapers!”

But that’s sort of gets unheard, because Sungyeol gets in depth into his relationship with Uncle Sunggyu, which earns Woohyun’s rage.

Sunggyu presses on the forward button, saying they’re too young to see that part. The food then arrives, and Sungyeol claims that’s not what he ordered, even though Woohyun insists that is what he ordered and they bicker a little about that.

That part ends after Sungyeol finally gets the dish he wanted, a grilled meat of some sort, after eating half of Woohyun’s since he’s hungry.

It jumps right to a video of Sungyeol in front of some building. And Mookyul hurriedly presses on slowing the video down.

“Your old studio!” Uncle Woohyun exclaims. And the expression on Uncle Sunggyu’s face is somewhat nostalgic.

Sungyeol turns the camera on himself as he walks in.

He says hello to the doorman.

“Oh, Sungyeol! Didn’t see you here for a long time! You seem… bigger.”

“Yeah. Good to see you too.” In the elevator Sungyeol makes a really upset face; “Bigger.” He mutters to the camera; “Your mama’s so big Mount Everest tried to climb her. Calling me Bigger. Old geezer. Once me and Hyung will make up, I’ll tell him to fire that shitface. Bigger. I’ll show him what bigger looks like…” He continues to mutter something, but it’s barely audible.

He opens a glass door, and waves to some of the guys there.

One of the girls gets up and hugs Sungyeol and asks him about the pregnancy and how he’s doing and that pregnancy looks good on him. When Sungyeol walks further in, he turns the camera back on him; “I always liked Bora. Mental pat on the back for inviting her to my wedding.” He says proudly, then suddenly seems to change his opinion; “Apparently, I’m not above being extremely petty. This is probably because I’m carrying Myungsoo’s children.”

Both Woohyun and Sunggyu seem to find that extremely funny.

Sungyeol opens another door.

Through the glass, you can see Uncle Sunggyu with a huge adjustment board, with tons of buttons and levers; he’s not facing it, however, but facing a couple of people, heatedly discussing something.

Sungyeol puts down a basket of cookies on the table in the room he’s in and then adjusts the pink note on it.

Sunggyu pauses the video, so he could read the note, Woohyun reads it out loud; “These are not reconcilement cookies, you don’t deserve them even though your latest album was the bomb. Not that we care. It’s not like we listened to it or anything. We hate you.    -xoxo, your fav dongsaeng, Sungyeol. PS) Myungsoo made those cookies. Call him to say they taste good, or else you’ll never see your nephew and niece and I’ll tell Woohyun you have some nasty STD.”

“What’s an STD?” Sooah asks, and Sunggyu is just staring at the screen nibbling on his lip, but doesn’t answer.

“Ummm… it’s like a thing. That your father will tell you about. When he’ll come back.” Uncle Woohyun says which means it’s something bad or relating some issue they shouldn’t know about.

Sungyeol shifts in his place and zooms in on Uncle Sunggyu.

“Let’s just wait here until he’ll notice us…” Just as he says that, Sunggyu glances at him beyond the glass. At first his eyes widen and then he narrows them down until they disappear.

Sungyeol hums and turns to leave.

Before his out of the door, Sunggyu is already in the room with; “What are you doing here?”

And Sungyeol answers with “Silent treatment~” Before going to the hallway. He snickers. The video ends.

Mookyul presses on the next one before she can even read the title.

It’s dad sleeping all tangled up in sheets.

“So daddy is a butt today. He promised to come with me to checkups, but he didn’t get up yet.”

“It’s 5am!” Myungsoo groans.

“No, it’s not!”

“It is!”

Sungyeol pauses, probably looking at the clock; “Oh, yeah... it is.” He sighs deeply. Then zooms in on Myungsoo’s butt. Then Sungyeol’s hand sort of pets it.

Uncle Woohyun presses on fast forward, grunting.

Sungyeol and Myungsoo and now both sitting in bed, and Sungyeol’s talking. Myungsoo looks sleepy, face half buried in Sungyeol’s shoulder, but happy.

“...Really active. Like I can feel them all the time. And for some reason mostly active during the night, which is annoying.”

“Mmnn, nocturnal just like daddy.”

“Sleeping 12 hours a day isn’t nocturnal, Myungsoo. It’s lazy.”

“You sleep 12 hours a day, too, now.” Myungsoo looks smug. “You just take like 3 naps, then complain you can’t sleep after 3am.”

“Well, whales don’t sleep.”

“You’re not a whale, baby.” Myungsoo kisses his shoulder. “You’re just a baby whale.”

Sungyeol frowns. “Thank you for making me feel even more insecure.”

“I like baby whales, though.”

“Myungsoo, I’m a man with a belly that looks like I’m 8 months already.”

“But that’s because there’s two of them.”

“I can’t even walk properly, I’m waddling like a penguin.”

“I like penguins, though.”

That makes Sungyeol even angrier.

They start to bicker, with Myungsoo looking slightly amused. Then the video stops. And starts from Sungyeol’s phone.  
He’s pouring peanut butter all over his ice-cream. “It’s -4c outside, 10pm on Sunday. But we don’t care.”

“We don’t care!” Myungsoo exclaims and adds chocolate into the ice-cream.

“We don’t care!” Sungyeol continues and throws a bunch of M&Ms inside.

“We don’t care!” Myungsoo adds in some sort of brown syrup, probably maple syrup.

The camera has a bad angle, and there’s smooching sounds. “I love you so much right now.” Sungyeol is saying.

“I love you more than you love me.”

“I love you infinitely.” Another smootch.

“I love you infinitely plus trillion.”

“I love you more than this ice-cream.”

“I love you more than the moon loves the earth.”

“Dude.”

Then it’s cut to them sitting on the couch - well Myungsoo’s sitting, Sungyeol is passed out on the couch. Both of their faces and shirt are dirty with ice-cream and chocolate and what not.

“So we were having a food fight and then we made out and he just fall asleep.” Myungsoo whispers.

“Oh my god, they’re disgusting.” Uncle Woohyun says, sighing tiredly. “Guys, how about we end this here, and go to sleep? We can watch the rest tomorrow, I promise.”

Myungsoo’s still talking, explaining something.

“No.” Sooah says stubbornly and puts the volume louder.

Woohyun sighs, but doesn’t press this further, thankfully.

The scene cuts to the both of them saying; “Dear future Children!” together.

“We’re back to IKEA!”

“IKEA!” Sungyeol repeats.

“IKEA!” Myungsoo says. “And now we’re going to buy cribs and stuff, because last time we only bought the chest of drawers and—”

“Last time?” Sungyeol frowns.

“Yeah, last time. We bought the drawer thing? And the table. And that Moon lamp.”

“Right.” Sungyeol looks confused all of the sudden, than takes a large inhale.

“He has _pregnancy stupidity_.” Myungsoo whispers. “Apparently that’s a thing.”

Sungyeol pouts, rubbing his belly. His face seems round and now that his hair is not in a bun, it’s long and a little curly.

She’s not sure how she never noticed it before; perhaps because the change was gradual, slow, spread over tens of videos - but Sungyeol looks different now.

Supple. Feminine.

She remember when the camera first landed on him during the very first video. He was undoubtedly a male and she didn’t need to second guess.

Now she can’t really see it.

She wouldn’t be able to tell.

Considering the big belly and the wide shirt and leggings, she’d probably assume thier parents are a normal couple, like any other couple out there.

“Well, at least I’m not stupid all year around.” Sungyeol says, turning away with his lips still curled.

Myungsoo makes the kind of face like he’s really amused by what’s going on.

He turns the camera and follows Sungyeol around as he checks cribs. “You’re so cute, you know that?”

“No.”

“You’re really cute.”

“No. I don’t like you anymore. We’re getting a divorce. And you’re getting kicked out to the curb, buddy.”

“Who's gonna warm your bed and rub your cold feet at night?”

“Well, it’s not going to be you, pal.” Sungyeol turns around to glare at him.

Myungsoo snorts. “It will be very hard to fit into my shoes, Sungyeol. Buying you a coffee-flavoured ice-cream and butter-garlic-shrimps at 3 am? Yeah, try to top that, future-replacement.”

“God, you’re so smug, you disgust me. I can just not marry. I can raise my babies alone.”

“Just because I said you have pregnancy stupidity? I mean, the babies deserve a father, you can’t just cut them off. And I come with all sorts of perks. Which you like.”

“Listen here, chum,” Sungyeol turns around abruptly, and Myungsoo whizzes, half laughing so he could stop walking. “I don’t like your attitude and you’re going to sleep on the couch.”

“Ohh, mommy threatens daddy, using all the synonyms he can think of to the word ‘buddy’.”

“That’s not all the synonyms I can think of. There’s also ‘Buster’. I didn’t use ‘Buster’.”

“I love you.”

“You’re still sleeping on the couch.” Sungyeol turns around to check another crib.

The rest of the video is basically them choosing a crib. The crib that they choose is the same one standing in the attic; it’s big and has a partition.

The next video Sungyeol is showing the front page of Seoul Times, with a picture of Sungyeol and Myungsoo holding hands while walking out from IKEA. “Adam and Steve?” it says in big white letters, and then in smaller ones; “Yes, these are two males, and yes one of them had been successfully impregnated and is waiting for delivery. Are we on the edge of a new era or the apocalypse? And who is the mystery couple? Page 3.”

He rants profoundly about how now he got religious fanatics knocking on his door, telling him how all of this is against god and the natural order. And people send him death threats and stand with signs around their apartment and don’t let him or Myungsoo even get to their car.

“My agent called, though. And both of my books have been wiped clean out of stores.” He seems like he has no idea how he feels about that. “I guess we’re really rich right now.” He snorts. “After birth, we’re moving to Daegu. Last thing I need is you guys growing up with cameras shoved into your face.”

The next video is more or less, like that; more articles about them. More Sungyeol talking. He talks about them, about how cold it is, about Myungsoo and about everything.

Their dad found a place at an important studio downtown, just like he always wanted, so he wasn’t free-lancing anymore, which meant that he was tied up to a certain schedule and hours.

Mookyul asks about Sungyeol’s books during it, and Woohyun makes a face; “I think we have them in our house. I don’t know if Myungsoo keeps them… They’re both dystopic novels, a few years back, some producer even contacted Myungsoo because he wanted to make a movie and couldn’t contact Sungyeol directly — he, er… well, didn’t know. When Myungsoo rejected his offer, he wanted to talk to Sungyeol personally since— Your dad got very angry.”

In the next video Myungsoo is standing alone in a grey hallway. His eyes seem really red and irritated and his hair unwashed and greasy, some just standing on his hair like on gel. There’s noise and clutter in the background. Beeping. Calling in the loudspeaker.

He gives the camera a small smile. “So… it’s december 24th... Christmas eve… Ummm… 4 days ago Sungyeol had some sort of a episode. He was really out of it - then when I thought he got better he told me he’s not feeling well so he’ll go to rest, but fainted in the hallway.” He rubs his forehead. “Umm… yeah. So he’s been in isolation since then. They won’t let me in - they won’t even let Hoya in the room…? But thankfully Dongwoo’s been coming out and been there with him so that’s good.” He presses his lips together a few times. “We don’t even know what’s wrong exactly… It’s really frustrating. But Dongwoo says you guys are perfectly fine, so that’s already good. Anyway…” He turns the camera away from himself and clamps it to a small window on a door. The room seems different than a normal hospital room, and everything seems wrapped in plastic bags, and there’s also a plastic bag around Sungyeol’s bed - but it’ sheer. Sungyeol is lying on the bed, talking to Dongwoo. He has an respirator and machines around him. When he notices Myungsoo, he raises his hand and waves.

He got some sort of a clasp on one of his fingers, and his wrist is connected with two tubes. Sungyeol gives his an air-kiss.

“Here he is. Our Brave Mommy.”

  


.

 

The next video is New Years. It starts with Myungsoo shooting with the camera on a stick again, so you could see everybody on the frame. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Everybody yell and then start clapping and cheering and raising their glasses.

Sungyeol and Myungsoo kiss and then say together; “Dear future children!” together.

“So we’re here in a smaller scale with everybody’s whose important, and soon all of the people in this room are going to be your family.”

Sungyeol is nodding his head, as Myungsoo starts doing a head count and naming everybody and introducing them in a funny way. After that everybody sort of turn back to their conversation, Sungyeol talks about how big his belly is and then calling Myungsoo a dick, because he needs to walk really far away so you could see his full belly.

“This is actually an ugly sweater party.” Myungsoo reveals to the camera his own black sweater that has two reindeers doing ‘ _it’_ along with the usual festive decorations that go on these sweaters, like snowflakes.

Uncle Woohyun starts laughing; “Oh my god, I remember that stupid atrocious sweater!”

Sooah scrunches her nose and can’t believe her dad would wear such a thing.

“No matter what I wear, it’s ugly because I look like an elephant.” Sungyeol raises his hands.

“Elephants are cute. I like elephants.” Myungsoo coos and kisses his cheek. “Sungjongie, let’s see yours.”

“Get that thing off my face.”  Sungjong rolls his eyes.

“Don’t worry, the camera won’t break from your pale appearance, I promise.”  

Sungjong shows his sweater, though not enthusiastically, and it seems like a normal sweater, it doesn’t have any decorations.

“What’s ugly in it…?”

“It’s a turtleneck. Turtlenecks are ugly.”

“Sungjong is just saying that because he broke up with his boyfriend, everybody ‘awwww’ because nobody saw this coming when he was drinking goat blood on Sungjong’s birthday party.” Sungyeol puts his hand on Sungjong’s shoulders and squeezes him. Sungjong looks a little upset; “It wasn’t goat blood. He wanted a bloody margarita.”

“It was margarita blood, then. I heard margaritas aren’t even mammals.” Myungsoo nods and Sungyeol snorts; “You’re so stupid, oh my god.”

Everybody are in good mood, and it feels festive and big. Sooah likes these holidays the best.

They talk to Mijoo and Jiae for a little while after that, then Myungsoo shows the kitchen, and Sunggyu and Bora standing pretty huddled up, tending to some snacks. After that he slowly reverts the camera to Woohyun, who's wearing a sweater with a huge W on it and has a frizzy mahogany colored hair that matches the sweater’s color.  Woohyun turns away to the camera from watching the kitchen then gives an annoyed look at the camera.

“What? I was filming your ugly sweater. For the kids.”

“Why can’t you people just let it go?”

“Well, we would’ve let it go if we knew you both didn’t hook up again when Sungyeol was in the hospital—”

“We didn’t hook up! He just slept in my place because it was closer to the hospital. Jeez!”

“Right.”

“There’s nothing between us, okay? Just drop it.”

“I’ve been dropping for 5 years and Sungyeol has been dropping it for 7 but we’re totally still in the process of dropping it, because we’re droppers. That’s who we are.”

“What does Sungyeol find in you?”

“Besides my amazing humour? Probably the fact that we’re not on-and-offing and being emo about our feelings for each other.”

“There’s—no feelings!” Woohyun is just frustrated at this point.

Uncle Sunggyu snorts; “Wow Woohyun, you sure managed to convince me.”

“Why are you acting like this is the first time you’ve watched this video?” Uncle Woohyun retorts from next to Mookyul.

Sooah shushes them, because she can’t hear.

The video doesn’t change much, pretty much everybody get to talk, Dongwoo talks for 10 minutes straight but Sooah doesn’t understand at all what he’s talking about because he keeps jumping from one topic to another, and wishing everybody happy new year every few sentences.

After that Sunggyu and Sungyeol are on the couch together and Sunggyu’s cheeks are red and he’s hugging Sungyeol and they’re talking about their parents when Myungsoo joins in to film them.

“—took Sungjong’s present and threw it into the fireplace.”

“Me and Sungyeol found the presents in the closet like two days before, so I really thought it’s it because it was about the same size.” Sungjong says off camera.

Sunggyu stiffens next to Sooah but she doesn’t looks at him, because she wants to hear it.

“He was so horrified!” Sunggyu laughs; “He couldn’t stop crying even after mom told him it wasn’t even his present. It was just a box. He was just lying on the floor and crying until he exhausted himself to sleep.”

“I lost trust in parental figures that day.” Sungjong jokes.

Sungyeol is glowing; “It was all my idea.”

“It was my idea!” Sunggyu argues.

“How can you be proud of that?” Sungjong click his tongue. “I bet you’ll do that to your centipede-boy and tadpole-head there.” He mentions with his hand into the general direction of his belly.

Sungyeol doesn’t look cross at the names though - maybe that’s just how affectionate Uncle Sungjong was like. “Please we’re totally going to be awesome cool parents.”

“Yeah,” Myungsoo agrees.

“You’re going to be the worst parents ever.” Jiae says.

“Me and Sungjong turned out fine, and Sunggyu raised us. It can’t be worse than that.” Sungyeol says.

“What the hell that’s supposed to mean?” Sunggyu is somewhere between cross and amused at the same time and he raises his hand from Sungyeol’s shoulder to pull his ear.

“ow-ow-ow, pregnant man here! No abusing of pregnant people in this house!” Sunggyu reaches for the keyboard all of the sudden, supposedly to stop the video, but his hand hovers and he doesn’t.

The party goes on, laughter erupting at Sungyeol’s comment, and Sooah looks up to Uncle Sunggyu.

He has his other hand on his mouth.

And his cheeks are wet.

His eyes are closed.

She never saw Uncle Sunggyu cry.

Once he was chasing Mookyul and he accidently stumbled and broke one of his fingers, he was super grumpy - but he didn’t cry. Sooah thought he was the bravest man alive.

She almost doesn’t recognize him.

“I can’t, Woohyun—” He’s voice is almost hoarse, and he stands up; “Stop it—”

Uncle Woohyun presses the pause button, and leaps up after him. “Hey—” He starts, following him to the hallway.

There’s silence for a long minute. Sooah tiptoes to the door. They’re standing there and hugging, Uncle Sunggyu’s head ducked into Uncle Woohyun’s neck. Uncle Woohyun wipes his eyes.  

“—I-I should’ve spent more time with him.”

Uncle Woohyun pats his back softly; “Sunggyu… We didn’t know. Nobody knew.”

Sooah retreats, feeling like she’s barging in on something intimate, and plops down next to Mookyul, where Uncle Woohyun was sitting.

Mookyul didn’t move from his spot. He glances at her, and looks guilty, like he’s the one who did something wrong.

She understands what this means.

Their mom really is dead. Sungyeol is dead.

There’s no big mystery around it.

He’s just dead.

And their dad - their dad - their dad is alive, but the man from the video, who is also their father, that man is also dead. Their dad is different now. He doesn’t even have the same laughter and he never jokes around like that anymore.

And these videos are the only thing that’s left of them both.

Now that she looks at Mookyul, she recognizes Sungyeol in him. In _them_ \- they have almost the same face - but Mookyul is moley, and has a mole on his nose and chin and 3 more on his neck. Mookyul lets a single big teardrop roll down his cheek; “Uncle Sunggyu never cried before.” He whispers.

He always does that when he sees someone else cry, like he can feel other people’s pain. Sooah hates it and loves it at the same time; it’s like he just needs to find an excuse to cry.

“Just think about it like that; these people… we don’t know them. Dad is different than he is in the movies. So they are just people to us. It’s like watching a movie. We never met them.”

“They’re not just people, Sooah. They’re our parents.”

Before Sooah can retort back to him, Uncle Woohyun and Sunggyu come back.

Both of their eyes are red, but they seem more composed now.

“Okay, I know we decided to watch everything, but… we’ll skip a few videos, okay?”

“No. You promised we can watch everything.”

“Sooah, this is very hard for us to watch and—”

“There’s only 4 more videos please let us watch, please.” Mookyul begs, standing up on his knees.

“Fine. But then we go to sleep. We’ll decide tomorrow what we’re saying to your dad. Together.” Sunggyu’s voice is stern, as if they’re in big trouble, like he wasn’t crying a moment ago. Sooah feels really angry for some reason about those terms, but agrees to them.

 

.

 

They don’t watch the end of the party, but turn in the next video.

Mookyul greatly miscalculated (probably on purpose) his “4 videos and that’s it!” program, since there were at least 10 more, so Sunggyu barks that they’re watching last 4 as they agreed on.

This means they will have to choose.

Sooah clicks on the one that says; “Pregnancy Yoga” and Woohyun immediately closes it; “Yeah, we’re not watching this. You’re not even watching this when you’re 18. Trust me on this. You don’t want to watch this. I’ve heard many things about this video”

Sooah immediately presses on the next, a video titled just “January Checkups”.

“That’s is one less, so there’s only 3 left.” Uncle Sunggyu says, impatient.

It starts with Myungsoo and Sungyeol sitting in the kitchen, Camera prepped where it’s usually prepped now, when they do these logs, and they say the same cheery “Dear Future Children!” intro together.

Then they don’t say anything for a moment, and Sungyeol turns back to Myungsoo and Myungsoo sighs. “Um, so we’ve been wondering if we should like maybe explain to you a bit what’s going on… We were told to document everything. So we decided bad issues are also a part of the process.”

Sungyeol nods his hand, one hand on his belly and the other on Myungsoo’s nape.

“Basically, Sungyeol doesn’t have pregnancy stupidity—”

“And what do we say when that happens?”

“That Sungyeol was right and I was wrong.” Myungsoo grumbles, and rolls his eyes, when Sungyeol continues to nod now with a smile on his face. “We’re supposed to be serious, Sungyeol, come on.”

“We are serious, it’s serious when daddy is wrong. It means _I’m right_ . And Daddy _is wrong_. And daddy is almost always wrong. We need to establish these rules while the children are young.”

“—As we were saying,” Myungsoo interrupts, slightly upset - Appa hates being wrong, even though he always comes up with strange facts and pretends they’re real. “Hoya seems to think there’s something wrong. With Sungyeol. We went for a regular check-up, and after he finished asking everything he needed to ask, he was  doing this flashlight thingie in Sungyeol’s eyes, and he frowned and—”

“That’s not what happened, don’t tell them that. I told him I’ve been feeling really disoriented a lot - and then he took out this medical flashlight and did series of lights in my eyes, and told me to repeat which side by order, and I couldn’t, because it was confusing as hell - and now both he and Myungsoo got their panties in a knot over nothing.”

“Over nothing.” Uncle Sunggyu snorts.

“It’s not over nothing.” Myungsoo in the video agrees with Uncle Sunggyu. “Tomorrow I’m  taking  a day off. So we’re doing a CT scan and a few other check ups.” He picks up a large stack of papers. Definitely not something Sooah would call a ‘few’.

“It’s probably a mixture of a few meds I’m taking, I’m taking so many that Myungsoo puts them in a box, so I’ll remember which ones to take when.”

“You kept losing them all over the apartment - I found one of the carpet near the toilet, god knows what you were doing there with your pills.”

“My bladder spontaneously discharges, without any warning signals. You’d be surprised how many times I pee a day.”

“I noticed that, especially during makeout time. I noticed that.”

Sungyeol leans in to say something into Myungsoo’s ear. It must have been something nice, because Myungsoo says; “Okay.” and presses on the button to stop it.

The next video is of Sungyeol going into a weirdly shaped circular machine. He’s wearing a hospital robe that barely fits him because of his belly, and below it a pair of sweats. Sooah remembers that machine from some movie she saw.

Myungsoo turns the camera from the window to Dr. Howon, who's standing beside him, his hands crossed on his chest, expression focused and worried. “What do you think it is?”

Howon seems startled at the camera when he notices it, but then he sighs. “I’m not sure. Many of the medications he was given were experimental, at best and—”

Uncle Sunggyu pauses the video.

“We’re not watching that either.”

“Why?!” Mookyul demands.

“Because we’re not. It's the video where he finds out that he’s sick. And when they tell us he’s sick. It was hard living through it, and it’ll be harder watching it too.” He presses on exit. “You have two videos left.”

At this point, Sooah is ready to go to war to see the rest of the videos; “This is not fair - you said we can watch 4 videos, so we’ll watch 4 videos. If you don’t want to watch it, then leave the room and don’t watch it.” She keeps her tone even - but inside there’s like a boiling kettle about to explode.

Uncle Sunggyu squints at her; “You should be thankful we’re even letting you watch these, you little brat. Just wait until Myungsoo will come back—”

“And then what? You’re going to go back to hide mom from us? He’s our mom too!” She raises her voice, but at the last word, turns her gaze toward Uncle Woohyun, instead.

He’s biting onto his lower lip, looking between them, and then says; “It’s way past your bedtime, okay? Sooah?” He rubs her back, as if to pacify her anger. “So… okay, alright? We’ll just watch 3 more videos. And then we’ll watch the rest tomorrow. Together. I promise.”

“We’ll get to keep the videos too.” She negotiates.

“You don’t get to choose the terms, Sooah!” Uncle Sunggyu warns, using the tone of voice where they do something extremely improper or bad. Mookyul is immediately shrinking beside her, because he’s a little wuss, ready to agree with everything just not deal with Sunggyu’s ‘disappointment eyebrows’ which always follow after shouting. But Sooah isn’t going to back down that easily. “No, _you_ don’t get to choose the terms. _You_ lied to us!” She yells, then purses her lips to a thin line.

“That will be something you’ll talk with you dad about. Keeping the videos. Okay? Because we don’t own these videos, your dad does.” Uncle Woohyun mediates again, and Sunggyu snorts, and stands up; “I’m going out for a smoke.” is his answer.

 

.

 

The next video they choose is titled; ‘Snowstorm’.

It starts with “Dear Future Children!” as well. They talk about their month, about Sungyeol’s new book, that has only a few scene left, Myungsoo’s crazy work hours at the studio. Just general things. They don’t talk about any sickness, almost as if pretending everything is fine and nothing’s wrong. Sooah wonders if this dates earlier than the other video or if there’s a mistake with the dates.

The winter of their birth, was apparently pretty severe, and Sungyeol and Myungsoo were locked in their building because it was snowing like crazy. They show them the window, Myungsoo making ‘wow’ sounds and Sungyeol calling him annoying.

Whenever it snows in Daegu, it’s just icy and wet and unpleasant and slippery - But the snow in the video - the snow in Seoul, outside the window, seems almost magical. It looks very soft, like patels floating down. Sooah likes that.

The next scene is Myungsoo’s lying in a blanket on the couch, half sprawled out, with his laptop on his lap. He looks serious and focused, the way he usually looks when he has some work to do at home. He finally looks like the Appa Sooah knows. With the blank expression on his face.

Sungyeol - or rather the camera sits next to him.

Myungsoo glances at him with a lazy smile; “What?”

“So do you think you’re ready for the responsibility of being a daddy?”

“This sounds just like the ‘Do you think you’re ready to get married to me’ talk.” He shifts a little, so he could sit more upright. He looks tired, but not smug anymore, just calm.

“I’m just worried now. After what Hoya said. What if something goes wrong?”

Myungsoo reaches out to him; “We’ll pull through it. You know we always do.”

“Promise me then. That no matter what, you’ll take care of them.”

Myungsoo’s smile fades, and he fiddles with Sungyeol’s arm that he’s holding and just stares at the camera. “I will. I’ll take care of them and I’ll take care of you. I promise. Just like I promised you I won’t bail on you or run away. Or cheat on you. We’re married. This—” Myungsoo reaches his hand out below the camera, probably onto Sungyeol’s belly; “Is our family now. Both you and them.”

“Okay.” Sungyeol takes a large inhale; “This has been videotaped, and you can’t back down.”

“I won’t,” Myungsoo’s laugh is short but genuine. Sungyeol shifts, and then leans down the couch next to him and turns the camera on them.

“I wish I could meet them already.”

“Once you will, they’ll be crying all the time and you’ll wish they’re back inside.”

“Never in my life have I thought my belly could stretch so big. I feel like a gigantic blob. I can’t walk into some doors. I feel like once they pop out, it’ll be like an inflated balloon of a belly.”

“If it’ll be jiggly can I pretend it’s a boob?”

“You’re the most terrible person in the world, Myungsoo.” Sungyeol laughs.

“You’re the most beautiful and amazing person in the world, Sungyeol.” Myungsoo turns to him and kisses his lips.

The rest of the video is just like that. It’s serene day at home, where they don’t do much besides being together.

They play a guessing game about Mookyul and Sooah and get almost everything wrong.

Mookyul doesn’t like cars or sports. Nor is he too interested in photography.

Sooah doesn’t like barbies (well - she used to, but Mookyul played with them more than she did!).

They get a few right. For example, that Sooah is on top of her class. Sungyeol guesses that one, and Sooah feels eerily proud for some reason.

Mookyul screams and squeals about their theories and predictions, excited. He’s sitting in Uncle Woohyun’s lap now, even though he’s clearly too old for that kind of coddling.

Uncle Sunggyu returns, smelling hard from tobacco. He doesn’t spare her a glance, so he’s clearly still mad at her, and sits next to Uncle Woohyun, instead, on the other side of the bed.  

They don’t hug or anything and Uncle Woohyun keeps himself busy with Mookyul’s hair.

Uncle Sunggyu sighs when their shoulders brush, and leans down, shoulders slumped, as he watches the video.

Myungsoo is explaining about different baby clothes they bought, showing what’s for Sooah and what’s for Mookyul as if it’s the most important thing ever that should be documented very meticulously.

Then he stops abruptly mid-sentances, not looking at the camera and smiles; “Sungyeol, you already woke up? What happened to ‘let me rest or I’ll cut you’?” He turns the camera back to Sungyeol somewhere along that sentence.

But Sungyeol looks disoriented and lost. And his eyes are wondering on the kitchen and then on Myungsoo’s face.

“Sungyeol?” Myungsoo drops the camera from his face, and you can see their feet.

Sungyeol doesn’t answer, and goes back to the hallway. Sooah can see his steps are very heavy and far apart, probably because of his big belly.

Myungsoo follows him. “Babe? Is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah. I just. I can’t find the bedroom. I wanted to go to the bathroom but…”

The video stops there, and continues with the both of them lying on the bed, talking in whispers.

Myungsoo tells him these ridiculous things; how Sungyeol is the most important thing in his life, his moon and stars, his morning sun, his most precious, the most amazing, beautiful, crazy, _breathtaking_ thing that had ever happened to him.

Uncle Woohyun groans and rolls his eyes, mutters things like ‘that’s from that stupid tv-show’ until Sooah clicks her tongue, very loudly.

He just doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t understand.

He met Sungyeol. He met him and got to spend time with him.

He met his parents before. He doesn’t understand how lucky he is. It doesn’t matter how sweet and PDA-ish her parents were, because they _aren’t_ anymore. So this is thing she got left. She’ll never be able to yell “gross!” like other kids when they see their parents make out. She’ll never wake up from a nightmare or see them together in bed.

She’ll never have what normal kids have - that normal family, that Uncle Woohyun had when he was growing up.

And it’s really sad, and pinches her heart and she wants to listen and to see her parents, making those silly videos, unsteady camera skills and bad language and everything included.

 

.

 

The next video they watch is called ‘Delivery’ and most of it is actually shot by Uncle Woohyun.

He narrates it like it’s a sports game, which is really annoying, telling what everybody are doing.

For example, when the camera falls on Sungjong scratching his nose, looking forward the hallway, he says; “And this is the younger brother, picking his nose. What treasure did he find inside the strange tunnels of his nasal cavity?” Which gets him a dirty glare.  

Dad isn’t allowed into the room while Sungyeol is giving birth, but they can hear the screams all the way in the waiting room, and every time, Myungsoo jumps up, putting a hand through his hair. He looks like he didn’t slept a lot, his eyes are red-rimmed, and his sweater seems dirty with something brown. He’s shaking his leg nervously, and can’t get it to stop even after Sunggyu tells him to ‘quit it’ a few times.

None of the screams sounds like Sungyeol.

They sound like the screams of different women, varying in pitch and length.

Sunggyu also keeps telling him that Sungyeol is getting Caesarean section, whatever the hell that is, and he’s not pushing twins out of his butt, so he should ‘chill the hell down already’, even though he himself went to smoke 9 times since the start of the video.

At some point Dongwoo arrives to tell him Sungyeol is doing great, and the babies are both healthy. A Girl and a boy. He even shows pictures of them, covered in liquid, red and wrinkly and small and naked. They don’t look at all like the both of them.

Sungyeol is still in surgery, though, and it might take awhile, until they’ll be able to see him.

Sooah feels her heart thumping loudly throughout the entire video.

‘Is he going to die at the end?’ Is all she could think about.

She is scared, that this is the end, and Sungyeol isn’t going to continue appearing anymore. That they were the reason why he died.

It’s somehow cruel, that he spent all this time waiting for them, but never even got to see them.

The part after is the two of them being brought by the two nurses, each lying in their own tiny little plastic bowl.

Myungsoo is crying when he shows them who is who, although you could tell by the bracelet on the hands. “You guy are the prettiest babies in the world,” He sniffs.

“S-stop being such a c-crybaby.” Woohyun, now with curly  dark-red hair, says next to him, and keeps wiping his tears with his sleeve.

“I wasn’t crying, I got something in my eye that time. I remember.” Uncle Woohyun defends video-Woohyn, but he’s not convincing anybody.

Sungjong is cooing above Sooah’s crib, touching her hand. “They’re so tiny!” He seems excited and amazed and Sooah can’t believe that there was a time he’d wear such an expression toward them. “They look like tiny kittens!”

Myungsoo nods, and the camera shakes with him, and he turns back to Mookyul. His eyes are closed and he stirs a little, his hands collected into tiny fists.

“This doesn’t look like me at all.” Mookyul says.

Sooah can’t see it either.

Uncle Sunggyu comes into the room, and glances at both of their cribs, feigning disinterest. “Did they say something about Sungyeol?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s taking them a buttload of time.” He says.

“Do you want to hold her?” Sungjong asks, and he’s holding her really gently in his hands, a warm smile on his face.

Throughout the videos, he always seemed cold and had sharp tongue. In the present, he’s not much different than that - he’s even colder and he barely smiles. Like a dark presence looming in the kitchen during their birthdays.

But there he’s different, gentle. It almost looks alien on him.

Sooah wished she knew him like that.

“I might drop it… her.” Sunggyu says, and looks really troubled while looking at the baby. “Why is she so silent?”

“They’re both sleeping. A nurse let us feed them with bottles. They latched onto them immediately like hungry hyenas! Unfortunately, they’re also Myungsoo’s kids.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you eat like a savage, hyung. Cavemen had better manners. I’m going to make sure the kids have good manners.”

“What happened to ‘centipede’ and ‘tadpole’? Now you want to be a permanent babysitter?”

“I didn’t think they’d actually look like Sungyeol. Look, they totally have his cheeks.”

“Mom’s cheeks.” Sunggyu agrees, humming as he studies Sooah.

“But definitely Myungsoo’s eyes.” Woohyun says.

Sunggyu squints at him, even though the camera doesn’t show Woohyun at the moment. “No, it’s Sungyeol’s eyes, idiot.”

Of course that starts an argument, which ends with them fighting over “that Bora girl” and “that Kibum guy”, and Sooah has no idea what that has to do with their eyes. They’re still like that, starting a fight about something irrelevant, and ending it in something they’ve been holding in for awhile.

Dongwoo comes by later and tells them Sungyeol’s in recovery, and they would rather have only one person enter at a time, since he’s still very weak.

When they finally get to next part; Sungyeol looks doped up and out of it, as he smiles to the camera lazily, Myungsoo next to him. He’s holding onto Mookyul, and Myungsoo’s holding onto Sooah with his other hand.

“We just took 100 pictures with the babies.”

“First pictures!” Sungyeol exclaims, though his voice sounds really hoarse.

“First pictures!” Myungsoo follows up.

“They seem so light. I can’t believe all that huge belly, for these two tiny creatures.”

“Sungjong called them kittens.” Myungsoo boasts.

“Hey, give her to me, I want to hold them both together.”

“You sure? You seem a little weak.”

Sungyeol nods and holds out his other hand.

He’s holding them both, now, and looks really happy.

Sooah allows herself to release a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and along her, Mookyul does that too, almost simultaneously. He must have also thought that. That they never got to meet him. But they did.

And he held them in his arms. And met them, exactly he always wanted and talked about in the videos. And it’s as amazing and as wonderful exactly like he wanted it. And he looks so happy.

And Sooah feels warmth and sadness stirring in her belly at the same time.

Mookyul promptly starts crying.

She takes his hand and squeezes it.

The video continues. Sungyeol is moved to another room. More people pile in. Jiae and Mijoo arrive shortly after. It’s very noisy inside.

Sungyeol seems like he really wants to sleep, but keeps smiling to everybody and returning hugs, and holding one or both of the babies for pictures and listening to everybody.

The next morning, Myungsoo, wearing another shirt, is showing Sooah and Mookyul again. “One day old! You guys are huge. But daddy has to buy himself something to eat, because I’m starved. And you two look delicious. Mmmnnn yum.”

Mookyul giggles through his tears.

“Or I might eat somebody else…” He turn the camera on Sungyeol. He’s awake, though his expression seems pained and he’s not even sitting up. “Painkillers.” He croaks.

“Again?”

“You’re not the one with the cut up belly, Myungsoo. I need the happy pill.”

“Okay, okay.” He reverts the camera back to the cribs.

“Go already. I’m here, I’m with them.”  Sungyeol takes a large inhale.

The next segment is Dongwoo in the hallway, holding onto a bottle of water, retelling how brave Sungyeol was in the surgery room, and that he only cried when they gave them to him and he held them for a few minutes, while they were ‘sewing’ him back. He gets into some medical terms that make Myungsoo turn the camera to himself so you could see his trying-to-feign-smartness expression.

They finally arrive to the room, and Dongwoo opens it and walks in; “How’s my most favourite patient in the world doing?”

Sungyeol’s smiling and standing over the cribs. He glances at them briefly. “Whose babies are these?” He asks.

“Pfft, just how doped up are you right now?”

“Pretty doped up~” Dongwoo singsongs, prepping the pillows; “Back to bed, Sungyeol, you shouldn’t be standing right now, it’s hasn’t been 24 hours yet since the stitches.”

“They’re so pretty.” Sungyeol continues - but they can’t really see him since Myungsoo is pushing him toward the bed and the camera is crooked sideways.

Once he’s back in, he says; “They’re our babies, Sungyeol. Mine and yours.”

Sungyeol is still smiling, but looks confused, looking back between the children and Myungsoo. “Right. I knew that.” He says.

Myungsoo laughs.

He talks gibberish after that, clearly not himself, and keeps on smiling. It’s kind of funny, especially when he’s amazed when Myungsoo tells them they’re married.

Then the drug wears off, and he starts to remember Myungsoo and the pregnancy, though he still mixes up a few things, and says asks when they’re going to be born, or asks why they’re in the hospital.

Once the video ends, Mookyul skips the rest of the videos, and presses on ‘Babies at home’, before Sooah can protest.

They have only 2 videos left to watch, and this video is too close to the end. After that there’s only medical videos.

But before she can say anything, there’s Sungyeol, in a dark room, with a blue lamp, and he’s holding one of them while sitting in a chair, and humming a tune softly.

The video cuts and then there’s them in the kitchen. It’s morning.

“Dear future Children— or is it present children, now?”

Sungyeol is chopping something on a cutting board, and rolls his eyes at him. “It’s still future. Because they’re not old enough.”

“Yeah, and we might have more.”

“We’re not having more. I haven’t slept for 4 days. We’re not having more. Ever.”

Myungsoo pretends he didn’t hear that. “Dear future children! So… today is Daddy’s birthday, and Sungyeol is making my favourite dishes. And we also got you both asleep. At the same time. Which is an amazing present for daddy. Especially since he got nice alone time with mommy.”

“They don’t want to know that.” Sungyeol’s cutting parsley now, holding down the green leaves pressed together, then getting into cutting them really quickly, almost with an ease.

“Also my employer called me and told me I’m fired, which is nice.”

Sungyeol snorts. “I’m surprised it took him that long.”

“We’re like the Brangelina of South Korea right now.”

“Just without the divorce,” Sungyeol comments.

“We’re so super famous, I bet we put idol groups to shame. And we have protestors claiming you guys are antichrists. Apparently me turning up at work is so newsworthy, that I couldn’t even get inside the building. And who turned out to be a devoted catholic? My boss.”

“You’ll get to be photographer’s assistant somewhere else, babe, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m going to freelance. I already have a cool exhibition name; ‘My family’.”

Sungyeol laughs, emptying all the chopped greens into the bowl.

“We should totally do artistic photoshoots. You’re going to be naked. And…” Myungsoo trails off, eyebrows furrows, and drops the camera yelling ‘Sungyeol!’.

The camera topples down. Sungyeol hisses.

Sooah didn’t even realize what happened.

“What the hell were you doing?!” Myungsoo yells.

“I’m s-sorry—I didn’t think.”

“Damn right you didn’t think! You could’ve chopped up your hand in half.”

“Sorry—I thought I was chopping the greens, I remembered I had to to chop the— Shit. Do you think this will need stitches—”

They see the ceiling for long moments, with Myungsoo scolding Sungyeol, until there’s distant crying.

The next video is Sungyeol ranting that he can’t get baby powder and had to get “Woohyun, the friggin’ celebrity” to get his baby powder, otherwise he’ll get murdered outside.

Sooah glances at Uncle Woohyun. He notices it and says; “I was weirded out too. Everybody were talking about it, and all the newspapers were reporting about what you look like. When they finally got a picture of you in the newspaper, everybody were so surprised of how you looked like normal babies, some even claimed to be fake photos of you.”

“Did they think we have horns or something?” Mookyul asks.

“This was the first time a male pregnancy has been carried to term… and this country wasn’t that opened to gay couples overall back then. It was a mess.”

The video changed to Sungyeol and Myungsoo explaining about Sooah and Mookyul’s habits excitedly.

“They cry at the same time. Almost always. It’s impossible. And separating you two? That’s even worse. You won’t quiet down until you’re together.”

“I was honestly ready for hell after reading ‘Raising Twins for dummies’. But you’re really peaceful babies. You already cry when you want to eat or when your diaper is full.” Myungsoo boasts.

There’s more baby-talk, like Sungyeol showing them a chart of baby poop and what each color and consistency means.

Mookyul is beyond disgusted and hides his eyes.

“You’re such a wuss.” She pushes him, and he pushes back; “Shut up.”

Then the video is cut to Sungyeol making faces to himself on the mirror.

“Look! 2 months after birth!” He shows his belly. The skin itself doesn’t look that good. It has marks on it, and one big scar on the bottom, still dark pink in color. But considering how big his belly was before, it seems almost like it disappeared magically.

“If I wear a shirt, you can’t even guess it.” Sungyeol pulls down his sweater, and you really can’t tell. He seems skinny.

Myungsoo’s head peeks into the room. “What’re you doing?”

“Stop following me around.” Sungyeol drops the camera and you can only see a part of a messy closet.

“I live here, I’m not following you around.” Myungsoo answers.

“Yes, but you hover.”

“You fainted, what am I supposed to do with you fainting? Not hover?”

“I’m fine - I fainted once, probably because of fatigue and—”

“You fainted three times in the past week, Sungyeol.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“See -  now I don’t know if you’re just denying or if you really can’t remember.”

“I’m fine! Okay?! Jeez!”

Then there’s crying in the background and Sungyeol huffs and clicks on the shut button. The video after that is Mookyul and Sooah lying together in various position with Myungsoo and Sungyeol cooing above them and playing with them and discussing Sungjong’s new boyfriend.

Then, almost as if the video repeats itself, Sungyeol is standing next to the mirror, in a different sweater, showing his belly. “Two months after birth!” He flaunts, again. “And you can’t see anything with the sweater.” He pulls the sweater down and shows how skinny he is.

Sooah can see Myungsoo sitting in bed through the mirror, staring at Sungyeol, wearing a strange expression on his face. Something between anger and sadness.

Uncle Sunggyu stands up, and walks out without a word, out of the room. Sooah stares after him for a moment.  
Sungyeol turns to the bed; “So are we going to Sunggyu’s birthday party?”

“That was last month, Sungyeol.”

“Oh.” Sungyeol says; “That’s right. I forgot.”

“Come here.” Myungsoo’s voice is gentle, but you can’t see his expression. You can only see the linen of the sheets. “Remember what day is today, Sungyeol?”

“N-not really.”

“Today the twins are 4 months old. We have a check up.”

“Oh. Right.” Sungyeol agrees.

“We’re not doing videos anymore. Remember we talked about this? That we won’t make videos until you get better?”

Sungyeol doesn’t answer. There’s a shuffle of sheets on sheets.

“Is there something wrong with me…?” Sungyeol finally asks.

“No. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

“We’re okay.” Sungyeol repeats. “And the babies are okay?”

“The babies are great.” Myungsoo answers, voice finally sounding final and confident.

“I love you, Myungsoo.”

“I love you, too,” Dad answers; “More than anything in the world, I love you.”

That’s it.

The video stops.

“What is wrong with him…?” Mookyul is red when he turns to Uncle Woohyun.

Uncle Sunggyu answers for him; “He had severe brain damage.” He’s standing at the entrance of the room. His hands are crossed on his chest. “They fed him chemicals and some of his treatments were downright hazardous. It was spreading pretty fast after birth. Hoya say it’s a mixed reaction from the anesthesia. At first the doctors had a vague clue what they’re doing - but beyond that point, they were clueless. If Hoya wasn’t there to keep him balanced, he might have— So they promised to fix him, and decided to operate, so the damage won’t spread.”

Mookyul wipes his snot and tears with his sleeve; “And then what?”

Sunggyu opens his mouth, but doesn’t answer, and glances at Woohyun. Woohyun is staring back at him.

“Did he die?” Mookyul urges. “Because of the surgery?”

“No… he—” Uncle Woohyun starts to say, but trails off. “He didn’t die.”

Sooah doesn’t want to listen to it, and presses on the very last video.

Sungyeol is lying in a bed. He’s sleeping. There’s tubes connecting to his nose. Tubes connected to his arm and to his finger.

Myungsoo is sitting on the arm chair.

Sooah realizes that the recording is very long - 96 hours long, to be exact, so she presses on the fast forward button. Then again, then again, until it fast forwards in the maximum speed.

Myungsoo spends the entire day sitting in his armchair. He briefly talks to Sungyeol. Holds his hand. There’s darkness, then there’s light again, then darkness again, and then he comes out for a second, and comes back in a new tshirt.

Then darkness again.

He’s holding onto Sungyeol’s hand.

“Sooah - maybe… let’s stop for today…” Uncle Woohyun says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Okay? Come on, baby. That’s enough.”

She isn’t sure what she wants to see at the end of the video. For Sungyeol to get up? She already knows he’s not going to get up.

If he were to get up, he’d be here with them right now.

But she still wants to see.

Dad changes another shirt. It’s another day. His face is buried in the blanket, and hand holding onto Sungyeol’s.

Then Uncle Sunggyu is suddenly in the room.

She presses on play.

“... Myungsoo,” He’s saying, his face looks tight, and he avoids looking into Sungyeol’s direction.

“No. I can’t.” Myungsoo’s voice muffled by the blanket.

“You can’t what?” Uncle Sunggyu’s tone is stern.

“I just can’t.”

“These are not our children, Myungsoo. We’re not going to babysit them forever. Come on. Get up, shave and let’s go back home.”

“I can’t.”

Uncle Sunggyu’s patience is weavering at this point; “You can’t what?! You think this is easier for any of us?!”

“Let’s not watch this.” Uncle Woohyun reaches for the pause button, but Sooah holds his hand.

“I can’t do this without him!” Myungsoo yells;  “I can’t— be their father.”

“Why the fuck not?!”

“Because I can’t! I just can’t! I can’t live without him! We were supposed to do this together. And now he’s just… lying there in an induced coma - and it’s all meaningless. Without him. I don’t want it anymore. Any of it.”

“Where were you a year ago, then? Now you don’t want it?! What do you want to do with them, then? Take them to a foster home? Why don’t we just throw them into the trash, because now you don’t want them?!”

Myungsoo doesn’t answer, he rubs his face and his hair, his hands shaking.

“Sunggyu didn’t mean it like that - we weren’t going to throw you anywhere - he just sat there for two weeks at this point and— he wouldn’t listen to anybody.” Uncle Woohyun is saying.

“Myungsoo, listen to me.” Sunggyu crouches beside him; “You’re not helping anybody like this. You promised to Sungyeol you’ll take care of them, right? Once they’ll wake him up - he’ll be upset if you broke your promise, right?”

Myungsoo is nodding, but he’s still crying.

“So, let’s get up. And go home. Okay? We’ll come back on the 16th. Then he’ll wake up.”

“I don’t-t want to go home without him.”

“I know. But Sooah - you know? Today…” Uncle Sunggyu pauses, you can’t see his face in the camera, since Myungsoo’s body is hiding it, but Sooah is sure he’s crying too; “Today she was talking. You know, how they always talk to each other in their weird little language? And Woohyun was showing them pictures. And she tapped on Sungyeol’s picture with her tiny little hand, and you know what she said? She said ‘dada’.”

Myungsoo starts sobbing. “She said that?”

“Yeah, she did.”

He buries his face in his hands, and cries, _loudly_ , for another minute or so, then almost abruptly, he takes a large inhale, and calms down, and starts nodding as head again.

Sooah wipes her own face from tears. She didn’t realize she was crying until it was hindering her vision.

“You have to be there, alright? So you can tell her about Sungyeol. Sungyeol would want that.” Uncle Sunggyu is saying.

“Yeah,” Myungsoo says. “I know. I will.”

“Let’s get you home.” Uncle Sunggyu stands up.

Myungsoo also stands up, but almost stumbles back. Uncle Sunggyu holds him before he can fall and helps him out of the room.

She wipes her face again, angrily, this time, and turns to Uncle Woohyun; “So he’s just like that…? That’s the big secret? That’s why you’ve been keeping him from us, because he’s not dead but he’s also not alive?”

Woohyun glances at Sunggyu again, and then says; “Well, no, he woke up, but—”

“He went into a coma.” Sunggyu completes for him. “After he woke up. He went into a coma.”

“So… maybe he’ll wake up soon, right?” Mookyul says, hopeful.

Woohyun doesn’t know what to say.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Uncle Sunggyu closes the laptop promptly, but he’s not facing them.

“Sunggyu.” Uncle Woohyun’s expression is stern.

“It’s better like that.” Sunggyu says.

Sooah isn’t sure what does that mean, and she squints her eyes, angry and upset.

“Your dad - when he’ll come back, he’ll tell you everything. He’s probably going to have an episode when he’ll find out. I’m sure he wanted to tell you himself.”

“He’ll probably be relieved. He can’t even talk about Sungyeol anymore. Whenever I just mention him, he pretends he didn’t hear me, and wears this expression of complete and utter horror on his face.” Uncle Sunggyu says.

“Sunggyu, stop it.”

Sunggyu picks up the laptop and carries it out of the room.

Mookyul’s shirt is wet from tears, and even some of his hair strands are wet. He can’t stop crying.

Uncle Woohyun sighs deeply, and ruffles his hair; “How about I make us all hot cocoa, hmm? Uncle Woohyun’s magical recipe. And then we’ll go to sleep.”

Sooah nods, and waits for him to leave the room, before hugging Mookyul. “Stop crying, okay?”

“You know our history teacher? Mrs. Choi. I always thought she’ll be the perfect mommy for us. But now - now I don’t want anybody to be our mommy. So when he’ll wake up. I’ll tell him that I’m sorry I wanted that. I’ll tell him that.”

She pets his back, but looks at the door. “Okay.” She says. She’s not going to cry anymore.

“We’ll tell him that. And we’ll tell him that we waited for him. I don’t want him to know that we didn’t know about him. I think he’ll be sad.” Mookyul continues.

Sooah nods against his shoulder. “Yeah. We’ll tell him that.” She says.

 

.

 

Sooah is wide awake, when it’s dawn, and although Mookyul has been trying to feign sleep, she can tell he’s still somewhat awake.

They went to sleep hours ago.

Uncle Woohyun even humoured them by answering their questions after 2am, and Sooah has never been awake for this long in her entire life. But she has yet to feel sleepy.

Mookyul’s room seems bigger. It feels like ages since they shared a room together - and even longer than that since they shared a bed. She lightly strokes his hair every few minutes. His hair is curly at the ends, and light. Is that what Sungyeol’s hair would feel like?

She tries not to think of him - or to think at all, her head seems flooded with information and violated and her reality hazy and broken. Everything she believed in, all the things she had planned, summer classes, friends - everything seems so secondary and measly.

And overall, nothing makes sense to her.

Nothing at all.

Why wouldn’t they tell them about him if he were just a body lying in a hospital bed?

Uncle Woohyun’s dodgy answers or the way Uncle Sunggyu just couldn’t look him in the eye from the minute he said he’s in a coma. Uncle Sunggyu is bad at lying. He always were.

She’s not sure what exactly triggers her to spring up from her bed. It’s almost like a part of her, that kept stubbornly telling her that something isn’t right, that part, finally pressed on the ‘launch’ button, without doing a countdown.

She sits up releasing Mookyul’s fingers from her pajama shirt.

She barely makes it to the door, when he says; “Sooah?”

“What?”

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom.” She answers.

He knows it’s a lie, so he crawls out of the covers.

She’s not going to wait for him - the quicker she gets it done, the better. She goes past the bathroom, downstairs.

Sunggyu and Woohyun have their own room on the first floor. They sleep there every time dad isn’t home.  It’s a nice room, more spacious than the upper rooms. Appa bought them a kingsize bed, too, and it has enough place for all 5 of them to fit in.

Despite that, Uncle Sunggyu fall asleep on the couch. He’s snoring. There’s two empty bottle of some alcoholic beverages next to the couch that smell foul. The expensive ones from the display in the livingroom that Appa keeps for important guests.

His handheld isn’t there, though, and she sighs and peeks in through the crack on the door.

Uncle Woohyun is asleep, Uncle Sunggyu’s pillow covering his ear.

She hesitates.

“What are you doing?” Mookyul sounds sleepy and rubs his eyes, when he reaches her.

“Go back to sleep,” She instructs, whispering, then takes a deep breathe, and opens the door.

She doesn’t breathe all the way to the stand beside the bed. Uncle Sunggyu’s handheld is in the charger. She plucks it out, and the little colorful light bulb in the corner flickers a little.

“Sooah…!” Mookyul whispers, scandalized. But she gives him a glare, before tiptoeing out of the room, breathing in once she closes the door back to a crack.

“What are you doing?” He demands, “We’re already in trouble. When Appa comes back—”

“We’re not in trouble, Mookyul. Everybody lied to us. They’re the ones who should be in trouble.” She stares at Uncle Sunggyu’s slumped form, face smeared on the cushions, takes a large inhale and picks up one of his fingers gently and presses it to the handheld’s fingerprint reader.

The device immediately lights up, right into Sunggyu’s face. He stirs, but doesn’t wake up.

Sooah takes a few careful steps back, before sprinting up the stairs, Mookyul on her tail; “Uncle Sunggyu doesn’t allow us to touch his handheld, Sooah, You know that.” He whispers furiously. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Yeah, I know that.” She plops back into the bed. “But if they’re telling the truth, they have nothing to hide.”

“What do you think they’re hiding?”

“They’re hiding our mom.” She opens the application window, but she’s not sure exactly what she’s looking from.

Most of the latest calls in Sunggyu’s phonelog were from them, Myungsoo or Woohyun. One from  Sungjong, from two weeks ago, along with some unfamiliar numbers and names.  

“They—he’s in a coma.” Mookyul comes closer to her; “Come on, Sooah, let’s just… give it a rest.”

“I just— I just have the feeling that they’re not telling us something. Are you not having this feeling as well? I just want to know the truth.”

“What if this is the truth…? Maybe Appa will let us come with him next time. To see him. I would—” He stammers, breath getting caught in his throat; “I would want to see him.”

She doesn’t answer, and continues to scroll through Sunggyu’s app window. His memo-pad app is empty. He has an app for quitting smoking which makes her snort. His gallery too, is mostly filled with their daily life pictures. Woohyun, and the two of them, and all 5 of them together.

He also has a kakaotalk.

“Sooah, come on, let’s return it.”

“In a bit.” She reassures. Uncle Sunggyu sleeps like the dead after drinking; “He has nothing to hide, right? So I’ll just check and return it.”

Mookyul sits next to her, making a weird face.

Uncle Woohyun sent Uncle Sunggyu a few selcas of him and Mookyul in the pet store, when Mookyul was supposed to be sick. “I felt better,” He says, then immediately adds; “I don’t like summer classes.”

She takes a large inhale; “Then why did you sign up?”

He furrows his eyebrows; “I don’t want to spend my summer alone! Or with Uncle Woohyun. He’s lame.”

She shows him a picture of Mookyul smiling wildly, both him and Uncle Woohyun pulling their noses up with their fingers. Mookyul pushes her shoulder lightly, and she snorts. “You’re such a baby.”

“You’re a baby.”

“You are.”

In the midst of a scuffle, she accidently must have clicked Sungjong’s chatroom on kakaotalk.  

Her laughter dies down when she reads the last message, was sent three days ago.

“ _He said he wants to leave home._ ”

She scrolls up;

“ _He seems very lucid today. He asked about you. Asked when you’ll come._ ”

Sunggyu replied with; “ _Me and Woohyun were thinking about maybe coming for a week on your birthday. I’ll visit him then_.”

She scrolls up again, to earlier date; “ _Got rashes on his skin_.” Along with a picture of red streaks on somebody’s skin.

Sunggyu replied with; “ _What is it from_?”

“ _Hoya said he was scratching his arms so much, it resulted in rashes_ .” Sungjong texted back. “ _Hoya seems very positive about the new treatment - but I hate that Myungsoo agreed to this._ ”

“ _That’s fucking great_ .” Is Sunggyu’s answer. “ _Are they going to restrain him again_?”

“ _No. It looks like it’s healing… He didn’t want to talk to me today. He wants to see ‘the man’. He’s just as stubborn as he always was. God, I couldn’t last an hour there with him like that._ ”

“Who… are they talking about?” Mookyul asks quietly above her shoulder. She glances at him and takes a large inhale.

She scrolls up again, at another conversation. This was at the start of August. Sungjong sent a video, and wrote; “ _Don’t tell Myungsoo_.”

She clicks it without thinking.

It’s a hospital room. It’s completely white. The walls and floor is white. The bed in the corner is white. There’s a desk, also painted white.

A man sits down onto the chair.

For a moment, she feels puzzled, trying to identify the man, but then it occurs to her that it’s Doctor Lee Howon that treated Sungyeol. Only his hair looks darker, and has white streaks in it. He chants out; “Session 78-INFT, patient 03, August 12 - 2028.” in a robotic monotone voice, before glancing at the camera; “Let’s see if he’ll want to talk today.” He turns the camera back to the front. Another man is sitting in front of him, in a white armchair.

But he’s not looking at the camera.

It takes her awhile to understand that it’s him.

It’s him.

Only it’s not him.

She feels her throat immediately clog up and Mookyul stiffens beside her.

His eyes are big and wide opened. He’s in a hospital shirt.

He’s thin. There’s half of him - His cheeks are hollow, instead of the naturally full red cheeks in the other videos. His neck is thin and brittle, like it can barely sustain his head.

His hair is chopped up messily, some collected into a bun on the back of his head. He looks lost and confused. Like something he didn’t understand just happened.

But it’s him, definitely him.

There’s light tapping, and Sungyeol is following it with his eyes, until he focuses on the camera.  

“Sungyeol?” Hoya probes.

He doesn’t answer, then looks away.

“Do you want to talk about this?” He shows him something. A page.

Sungyeol glances on it briefly, then looks away again.

“Do you want to talk about what happened this morning?”

He’s not answering.

“You attacked the nurse that came with your meds.”

“I didn’t attack her. I don’t want the meds.” He puts his thumb in his mouth and chews on his nail.

“You need the meds, Sungyeol. To get better.”

He finally looks at Hoya, then rubs his nose on his fist.

“Okay, Sungyeol? You can’t go home until you’re better.”

“She’s not him. And he didn’t come.”

“Who was supposed to come instead of her? She’s been coming to your room every morning.”

Sungyeol looks away again, disinterested in the question.

Sooah isn’t sure why, but for the first time since her dad left the house, she feels completely and utterly heartbroken - and tears trickling down her cheeks.

He looks defeated. He looks wrong.

It’s him, but not him.

“Let’s talk about this Sungyeol, okay?” Hoya shows him the page again. “Why did you write this down?”

“To get better.” He says.

“What?”

“I need the meds. To get better. To get better.” He nods, more to himself, than to Hoya. “I’ll leave when I’m better.”  

“Sungyeol?”

And that’s it. He’s looking at something else.

Hoya sighs deeply, and there’s the sound of chair getting dragged.

Sungyeol suddenly turns back to him; “Will that man come again?”

“What man?”

“That man.”

“Sungjong? He comes every saturday, remember?”

“No, not Sungjong. Not my brother. That man.”

The doctor is quiet for a moment, then he says; “Are you talking about Myungsoo?”

Sungyeol is just staring at him.

“Myungsoo, Sungyeol? Is that who you’re talking about?” The question comes out very slowly.

Sungyeol nods. “He wears a black suit.”

Dr. Howon lets out a shaky breathe that’s audible to the camera. “Do you remember Myungsoo, Sungyeol? Who he is?”

“He always comes to visit me. In August. It’s august.”

“Do you remember why?”

He shakes his head.

“It’s your birthday, Sungyeol. He comes to be with you on your birthday.”

“Why?”

“He’s your husband.”

“Husband.” Sungyeol doesn’t seem to remember the word. Or doesn’t seem to understand.

Sooah sobs.

“We talked about this, remember?”

Sungyeol isn’t saying anything again, so Howon presses on.

“H-how about this? Let’s talk about it. Do you remember writing this? You woke up in the morning and wrote this down.” He puts the page up again.

Sungyeol collects his legs to himself, and puts his face into his knees and covers his ears.

Sooah can’t watch anymore. She hides her face into Mookyul’s neck and shuts her eyes as powerfully as she can. He can’t be their mom. He can’t be anything. He can’t remember them, and he can’t remember their dad.

He barely can remember Uncle Sungjong. And he can’t even have a normal conversation.

But the video doesn’t end there.

Mookyul is crying, not loudly, but quietly again, shoulders shaking. He keeps his eyes on the video.  

He’d better off be in a coma - or just dead. Instead, he’s just…

Howon sighs.

Sooah turns her eyes back to the screen.

Howon is reverting the camera to himself. He looks apologetic, and then he shows the page to the camera before logging off.

And written there, in neat blue handwriting, it says; “ _Dear Future Children_ ”.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading~  
> If you have any questions or critique, I'm all ears! :)


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